Then Comes Spock
by TeaOli
Summary: The Enterprise has completed its first mission & its senior crew have settled into their roles. Unusual circumstances send Spock and Uhura to the Vulcan colony. Chapter 15 is up. Complete. Name changes in final chapter.
1. Hybridogenesis

Disclaimer: The characters and the starship don't belong to me; I'm just giving them new lives and new situations.

* * *

Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy leaned forward, elbows planted on his desk, and rested his chin in cupped palms. He narrowed his hazel eyes at the couple seated before him. The beautiful human woman with glowing brown skin and sleek dark hair wrapped into a tight bun atop her head smiled pleasantly, despite this unexpected summons to the physician's office. The pale half-Vulcan to her right stared back at him, his face too carefully composed to convey what he might be thinking.

"How familiar are you with hybridogenesis?" McCoy asked, his voice abrupt. _May as well get it over with_, he thought.

"It is an atypical form of sexual reproduction in which certain female hybrids produce zygotes without the inclusion of the paternal genetic material," Spock answered for the couple.

McCoy's forehead furrowed as he frowned a bit before responding verbally.

"Yeah, well… Yesterday, I would've said your definition is dead on, if more simplistic than I would've expected, coming from you. But... yes, that's how we've seen it manifested in all cases observed in the past. At least, as far as research available to me indicates."

He paused, then leaned back in his chair and crossed one arm over his chest. His other hand drifted to his face, allowing one finger to rub against his jaw line. He frowned again, his thoughts turned inward.

Uhura looked intrigued; Spock, as was most often the case, looked impassive.

"Doctor, your statements suggest you no longer believe that the currently available data fully represent all the available… possibilities. Lieutenant Uhura is, as far as medical science has been able to determine, fully human. I, while undeniably a hybrid, am male. What does hybridogenesis, as you understand it to occur, have to do with our present circumstances?"

Spock suspected he knew exactly, or almost exactly where, Leonard McCoy's thoughts were headed. But it was not necessary to depend on suppositions when there was a reasonable expectation that a direct question would be answered.

Bones frowned in earnest now. His hands shot down onto the desk as he leaned forward once more.

"This has _nothing_ to do with hybridogenesis _'as I understand it_,'" he snapped, but without much bite. "I don't understand this at _all_! Yet. I'm a doctor, damn it. Not a xenogeneticist."

He shoved a frustrated hand through his dark hair while shaking his head. But, again, there was little heat to his apparently combative words.

Uhura stifled a giggle at her colleague's half-hearted attempts at curmudgeonly behavior.

"Len," she said, reaching out towards the hand still resting on his desk. While she'd managed to refrain from actually laughing, her smile was as apparent in her voice as it was on her face. "What are you trying to tell us, Bones?"

She didn't think to be concerned about whatever the ship's chief medical officer might have to say. She was more than his patient and colleague. She was his friend. Leonard McCoy was good at what he did – better, in fact, than many of Starfleet Medical's best – but he couldn't sit back and _not_ try to fix the broken, and he didn't have it in him to hide his worry when treating friends who might be in danger. Not to her anyway. Uhura could read the oft-grumpy, frequently snarky doctor as well as she could read the stoic half-Vulcan seated at her side.

Bones sighed. Dropping his left hand from his head, he leaned forward and, uncharacteristically, gave a couple of pats to the one covering his right.

"The kids are half-Vulcan."

Now, the lieutenant sat back, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. She turned her head, first staring at Spock before returning her gaze to McCoy.

"Excuse me?"

* * *

**A/N: **For the record, my strong points have been in describing setting and developing characters. Since I started working for a newspaper, my skill at plot development has gotten shaky. Because this story focuses exclusively on fully developed characters, and because I'm attempting to adopt a more spare descriptive style that I feel is more suitable to the subject (and since I'm near-perfectionist writing without a beta) updates might take a while.

Also, I've always had a keen interest in genetics and biology, but my major were first journalist, then English Lit. If my science is faulty, let me know, but hybridogenesis is real.

I'm new to this site and to publishing this manner, so give me a heads up if you think I'm failing miserably.


	2. Clarity

Disclaimer: The characters and starship don't belong to me; I'm just giving them new lives and new situations.

* * *

"Your children appear to be half-Vulcan, rather than one quarter Vulcan, as we would expect the progeny of a human/half-Vulcan… coupling to be," he said finally.

Uhura's hand unconsciously settled on her still-(mostly)-flat belly.

"And, how do you propose this occurred, doctor?" Spock asked.

"I'm a doctor, damn it. Not a xenogeneticist," McCoy grumbled a second time.

"One would assume your training at Starfleet Academy, if not your prior medical training, would have, at some time, included studies in the field," Spock said. "It would not be unreasonable to believe that a starship whose primary purpose is the exploration of civilizations and the discovery of life-forms previously unknown to its makers and those serving on it, and whose occupants included various disparate sentient species, would have a chief medical officer who was somewhat acquainted with the biology, physiology and _genetics_ of said disparate sentient species, as well as posses the ability to study any deviations from currently known data about the stated subjects. Or, at least have the ability to direct a staff that posses such abilities."

A human might have raised his voice while delivering such a diatribe. Spock's flat monotone made it into a simple statement of fact. The words, however, while not exactly insulting, could easily be construed as challenging.

Bones stood up behind his desk. His mouth worked furiously for a few moments before he sighed heavily and dropped back into his seat. After serving with him for the past six years, he felt he knew the green-blooded pixie well enough to realize when the guy wasn't as unaffected as his dispassionate expression suggested.

Spock was rarely disinterested in subjects involving his wife, no matter how seemingly inconsequential. _Hell, she'd charmed the science officer into playing chief style maven and bag-carrier during her shopping trips!_ If there was even a suggestion that her three-month-old pregnancy might incur any difficulties, Bones was certain the emotions behind the mask would try even Spock's titanium-clad control.

Uhura placed a hand on Spock's forearm and shot a faint grimace in his direction. He raised an eyebrow at her silent admonishment. She turned to Bones, opening her mouth to apologize. Explain. Something.

Spock beat her to it.

"Doctor, I would continue by saying that I have every reason to believe that you more than fit the requirements of such a chief medical officer. Your accomplishments over the course of our joint assignment to this ship have instilled in me a certain… faith that you, better than most, will be able either to find an answer to any questions which might arise during my wife's pregnancy, or, should you find you are unable to do so, point us in the correct direction to seek those answers elsewhere."

Uhura released her death-grip on Spock's arm and settled back into her seat.

"I'm sure you recall that not all of us were granted our positions under conventional circumstances, Mister Spock." The doctor chose his words carefully. "_However_, you're right. I wouldn't still be in this chair if I didn't have the goods to back up the title.

"Given enough time, I'm sure we'll figure out the _why_s and the _how_s, but babies don't wait for us to work out the circumstances of their conception before they decide it's time to get born. I figured the two of you might be more concerned about whether what we _do_ know is gonna present any complications to this pregnancy."

Spock appeared to straighten his already poker-straight posture even further.

"I am unaware of any serious complications my mother experienced during _her_ pregnancy. Therefore, I see no reason why Nyota should experience any simply because she also carries human/Vulcan hybrids." He tilted his head to one side, considering the doctor. "If you are in possession of further information that leads you to believe that she may, please, enlighten us so that we may do what we can to address those concerns."

McCoy lost the frown. He hadn't meant to upset either of his colleagues and friends. But he didn't smile, either.

"Commander, I don't have any specific concerns. And your mother's lack of complications — as far as you are aware — is a little bit reassuring. But we're dealing with the unexpected, here. I'm not taking any chances with Nyota, or with your little girls. I had to let you know what was going on."

Spock appeared to relax as much anyone — or any Vulcan — could relax after hearing unexpected news from a doctor.

"If it will further reassure you, doctor, I will contact my father and request further information pertaining to my mother's pregnancy. If there is anything that we do not know that we should know, Sarek is the one to ask."

McCoy gave a quick nod. He was pretty sure he wasn't the only one needing reassurance.

"'Preciate that, Mr. Spock."

He and Spock got up, the discussion clearly over until they knew more. Uhura stayed seated.

"Wait a minute," she said, folding her own arms across her chest. Recognizing the stubborn set of her jaw for the command it was, both males sat back down.

"I just want to be sure we're clear. You're saying, so far, I'm healthy. The girls are healthy. Right?"

Now Bones allowed himself a fond smile.

"Yeah. All three of you are doing great. So far."

She returned his smile with a dazzling grin before standing, collecting her husband, and exiting the office.


	3. Business As Usual

Spock sat on the bed, not speaking as Nyota set about preparing for their next bridge shift. She kicked off her soft slippers, then stripped off the loose-fitting trousers and short-sleeved top she preferred to wear when off duty and tossed them on the bed. Spock began to fold them neatly as she pulled on first the short skit and then the tunic that comprised her uniform.

"Are you brooding?" she asked. The shirt covering her face muffled her words, but Spock's sensitive ears had no trouble making out what she was saying.

He watched her struggle with the shirt for a bit, a half smile threatening to take control of his lips. Shaking his head, though she couldn't see him — the human gesture was made solely for her, after all — he set aside her clothing and went to stand before her.

_My Nyota_, he thought, _always in such a hurry_. _But usually so much more efficient_.

"Vulcans do not," he told her, yanking on the shirt's hem to reveal her face, "brood."

Before she could pull the face he knew she was eager to make — sticking out her tongue at him was a favorite — he planted a quick kiss on her startled lips. And then added another when those lips curved into a smile.

"I was not brooding, but I _was_ thinking about what Doctor McCoy said about our daughters," he told her.

Uhura plopped onto the bed. He retrieved her slippers, walked over to the closet and exchanged them for her black uniform boots.

He stopped at the tall, narrow bureau before returning to her.

"Socks or tights?" He opened the top drawer.

"Socks."

Closing the drawer after making his selection, he walked over and handed her a pair of long black socks, then knelt in front her, holding the boots in one hand.

"Thanks. I forgot." Her grin was rueful as she slid a sock over each foot and calf. "It must be the hormones."

"Or could it be that you are the one who feels the need to brood?"

She stood without answering. He guided each foot into its boot, while she steadied herself on his broad shoulders.

"This will be good practice for you," she said, straightening. "For when the girls are older. After they're born I mean." She bit her lip, her eyes unfocused.

"I understand, Nyota." Spock stood as well, watching her.

"And anyway, there's no reason for either of us to brood. You heard Bones!" Her face brightened, another smile curving her lips as she clapped her hands together. "I'm healthy. The girls are healthy. And — and worrying before we have reason to worry is not only illogical, it can be detrimental to my continued pregnancy!"

She strode towards the entryway to their common area.

"I'm not worried," Spock said to her back as she marched across the room.

He reached her before she made it to the front door of their quarters. Pulling her back against his chest, he leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"I am merely curious about the cause of a most unusual circumstance."

* * *

No one on the bridge seemed to be aware of any tension. Beyond Jim Kirk's "Everything good?" no one even commented on the couple's three-month check-up. They were the first senior officers expecting children on The Enterprise, but theirs would be far from the first babies born aboard the ship. Neither Uhura nor Spock mentioned having been called to McCoy's office for a chat after the scheduled appointment.

_There is nothing to worry about,_ Uhura told herself before focusing all her concentration on listening to the sounds of the cosmos, ears alert for snippets that didn't find their origins in the natural, unthinking turnings of the galaxy.

Was the morning's news strange? Yes. But Bones and his team were among the best Starfleet had to offer. They would figure out what had happened. And if complications _did_ crop up, they would fix it, or Bones would find someone who could. And if there was no one— but there was no use in thinking that way, and Uhura lost herself in the buzzing of the universe.

From his station, Spock watched as his bond-mate's face turned from pensive back to its more usual alert awareness. He knew she was listening to the world flying by, ready to signal should anything useful, unusual or interesting come across her earpiece. She had actively pushed any concerns his quiet contemplation had aroused in her, and was now absorbed in her work.

Which was good. It would fall to him, as the scientist of their growing family (and as, though he would refrain from saying it in such a way to the fiercely independent Lieutenant Uhura, his bond-mate's protector) to consider the ramifications of the day's news. Because, depending on what he and Leonard McCoy uncovered, their discoveries had the potential to reach out across the stars and test the beliefs and prejudices that had followed him since his birth.

* * *

**A/N:** This is the final set-up chapter. Promise future chapters will be longer and more fulfilling.

Disclaimer: The characters and starship don't belong to me; I'm just giving them new lives and new situations.


	4. First Comes Love

Quietly humming machinery ringed the round, mid-sized laboratory. The xenogeneticists on board were linked to Starfleet Medical, as well as working directly under the biological studies area of the Fleet's Science Division. They got funding from both departments, and had their own space adjacent to Sickbay. Powerfully sensitive equipment, used as much to diagnose disorders as it was to study the genetics of the peoples of the galaxy, was housed there.

_There had been no mistake_. Though he had been hoping for a far different result, he wasn't surprised. He almost pounded the console sitting in the center of circular room.

He hadn't been boasting — well, maybe just a little — when he'd told the Enterprise's science officer that he deserved to be chief medical officer for Starfleet's flagship. He was _that_ good, and he knew it. His remarkable ability to diagnose and treat the many difficult illnesses they'd encountered during those first five years had afforded him a certain respect from the powers-that-be in Starfleet Medical that even his strong personality, widely regarded as… unpleasant, was unable to dilute. Many were in awe of the man's medical acumen, though few would admit to it. Still, it meant that he had his pick of staff. The galaxy was full young bucks and fillies who were eager to ignore (or attempt to ignore) McCoy's bark, in order to say they'd served under the man who was gearing up to be one of the best doctors in Fleet history.

So Bones wasn't surprised when further analysis of data downloaded from his lead obstetrician's tricorder told him that Nyota Uhura was carrying half-Vulcan twins. He'd downloaded the data from the lieutenant's scans into the most powerful sequencer/analyzer available to the Federation, expecting such confirmation. His people didn't make many mistakes and stay his people. He'd never been one to refrain from opening a can of verbal whoop-ass just because he happened to be standing in Sickbay.

And he was acutely aware of the analyzer's capabilities; he'd helped design it.

Officially, the machine was dedicated mapping the genomes of the many new species the crew could expect to encounter during their travels. In fact, it was more often utilized the to aid in McCoy's pathological research. It had often proved to be an invaluable tool when the medical staff had been faced with disease among populations of the previously-unknown. They'd found more often than they could count, that if time allowed, it was to the benefit of their patients, humanoid or otherwise, for McCoy's staff to begin with a greater understanding how those beings were built. And if whatever was making them ill was organic in nature, well, it could be pretty handy to take at peek into those things, too.

But this time, Bones had already had a damn good grasp of what he was dealing with before he even let the sequencer act as a third or fourth pair of eyes. Maybe he was wasting time — something he hated almost more than he hated stupidity in anyone else — but he needed to have a hell of a lot more than a pretty good grasp of this situation.

Nyota Uhura was a damn fine woman, and despite outward indications that he had none, a great friend — almost family. She could brush aside or reach right through his nastiest moods as easily as she saw through the frozen mask damn near permanently affixed to that green-blooded elf of a husband of hers. He wasn't taking any chances with the first woman he'd let get truly close since his ex-wife had taken him for all he was worth.

"God damn it!"

The doctor finished going over the read-out and shoved his chair away from the screen. Because now that he'd laid aside the last lingering infinitesimal strands of doubt about the _ifs_ of the twins' heritage, as long as they and their mother remained out of danger — Sarek had responded to Spock's queries with confirmation that Amanda Grayson had experienced none of the complications during her pregnancy or during Spock's birth that she had had with her earlier miscarriages — there was time to start looking into the _whys_ and the _hows_. The doctor was enough of a scientist to want to know. And even if he didn't, it would have been his duty to Starfleet to find out.

He glanced up at his companion and glared.

If only that didn't mean saying what he was about to say to Spock. The thought gave him the heebie-jeebies more'n the time he'd helped deliver an Agenian tree dweller's litter up a tree in a rainstorm. Bones grimaced, not quite able to repress a shudder. _Eww_. Argenia was a small M-class planet, covered almost equally in rain forest and ocean, and while its dominant species were humanoid, their skin emitted a thick slime that facilitated oxygen absorption and kept their bodies from becoming water-logged. The arboreal people rarely bred, even the mated couples — but when they did, they tended to give birth to at least six young'uns at time. The task before him seemed worse than the memory of that night.

"Doctor, the look of distaste you are directing at my person suggests that you have confirmed the initial determinations of Nyota's personal obstetrician as well as those of the head of your obstetrics team." Spock paused. "Not to mention your own preliminary hypothesis.

"By your own admission" Spock, who had been standing across the room from McCoy for the past twenty-five minutes and six point thirty-five seconds, quirked his left eyebrow as he said this "you are the most qualified individual to help me discover the reasons behind the unexpected genetic make-up of the fetuses my bond-mate carries. No other practicing physician in Starfleet has your experience and understanding of the nature of the human, and the half-Vulcan, body. You have had opportunity to learn more of my unique physiology than anyone in Starfleet Medical has been allowed in the past. So, there is no one more intellectually suited to the task."

He walked across the room until he was standing beside the doctor's chair.

"Moreover, my bond-mate considers you to be, among other things, a friend. And I've come to appreciate that she might not be illogical in her estimations of your social attributes. So, I'm perfectly willing to work with you to discover why Lieutenant Uhura and I seem to have conceived the impossible.

"However, as it appears _you_ might be uncomfortable with the nature of the discussion in which we must now engage, doctor, I wish to assure you, my father has already told me where babies come from."

McCoy stared at him for a moment without speaking. The god-damned Vulcan was trying to make a _joke_. He was attempting to lighten the mood, ease the tension, with humor. Even though he wasn't entirely successful, that he had tired at all was nearly enough to make the doctor let loose a crack of laughter.

If only things were that easy.

Instead of laughing, Bones stood next to Spock and placed hand on the younger man's shoulder. He knew, of course, that many Vulcans preferred not to engage in casual physical contact. _Too bad_, he thought. Things were about to get a lot more uncomfortable around here.

"Son, I wasn't worried about stepping on your daddy's toes and giving you 'the talk,'" he said. "I just know you aren't gonna like what I've gotta say. And I'm not in the mood to become a human pretzel when you let go of that… control you Vulcans are so damned proud of."

"If you are implying that something you wish to tell me will make angry enough to display an emotional response, you are mistaken."

"You better make sure you feel the same after I tell you I'm sending you and the delightful Miz Uhura to Vulcan Beta."

* * *

Outwardly, there was little sign that Spock's mind was flooded with contrasting thoughts and emotions. Few looking at him would see anything other than the expressionless façade they'd become accustomed to associating with the science officer. But the woman seated across the table from him — even if she hadn't had a direct line into his mental and emotional frequency — would suspect that underneath, longing warred with fear and anger battled anticipation.

"I still do not see the advantage of leaving our respective positions for an indeterminate amount of time when we have already been assured that you and the children would face no additional danger should they be born on the Enterprise.

"Nothing in Doctor McCoy's arguments show any benefit you or our children will enjoy if we travel to T'Khasi Vokaya for their birth. Why should the Enterprise suffer our absences when it is not medically necessary for us to be elsewhere?"

"Oh, for god's sake, Spock, use a contraction!" Uhura was not insensitive to her husband's struggle, but she found it in increasingly difficult to deal with his adamant opposition to their trip to the planet another — older — Spock had found after the destruction of his homeworld. She sighed. "We won't be gone that long, k'diwa."

This younger Spock had visited the planet only twice since the remnants of his people had taken the first steps toward colonization, just weeks after the Enterprise and her crew had embarked on their first official mission. Both visits had been official, ordered by Starfleet to conduct Federation business.

"I seem to recall, when it was confirmed that you were pregnant, you told Doctor McCoy, the captain and me that you would be present for all of your shifts until the end of your term. Your exact words were 'until this baby comes crawling out of me to take over after her father faints at the science station.'"

Uhura found herself smiling in spite of her continued frustration. He really was getting better at using humor. These days, he wielded irony almost like a natural. He was learning to deftly dodge her flashes of temper without incurring even more of her anger.

It would have been easy to think that his resistance made little sense. After all, he'd been on the verge of resigning his commission in order to live out his life in the very place he was so reluctant to even _visit_ now. Uhura knew better. She reached her left hand across the table to touch his left.

"Eat your dinner before it gets cold," she admonished, her tone far more gentle now. "And before you say it, I understand that this trip really isn't about me and the girls. I know it's not me they really want to poke and prod. I can even see why part of you would want no part of what's going to happen. But what about Spock the scientist, who wants to unravel the mysteries of the universe? What about the Spock who was willing to sacrifice all of this to help rebuild his people?"

She swept her right hand out in motion that seemed to indicate the common area of their quarters. Spock knew she meant all of the Enterprise. All of her crew and their friends who served aboard. All of Starfleet. All that she and Spock had been to one another, and everything they had become.

Spock turned his left hand so that it rested under hers, palm to palm. He slid his fingers down and over until his first two his fingertips touched hers.

"I am no longer willing to give any of it up," he told her, "no matter what the reward."

* * *

_Sarek had been alone in his dwelling when the transmission from his son had come. All was well, Spock had said, but he was contacting his father to ease the mind of Doctor McCoy. He had asked about the time when Amanda had carried their only child in her own body._

"_Your mother experienced no difficulties. There were no complications caused because she carried a half-Vulcan child. Indeed, unlike with our first attempts, there were no complications at all with _you_. Your mother was remarkably strong," he had told his son. _

_"She was kept under such heavy observation only because of the uniqueness of our situation. While we already knew that Vulcan and human reproductive systems were sufficiently compatible to assure conception — your predecessors were concrete proof of that — we did not know whether a human woman would be physically capable of enduring the gestation of a Vulcan hybrid without damage."_

"_Why did you try?" Spock and asked upon processing this information. He had not known this much about his own origins. He had wondered, of course. But it would have been unseemly to ask._

"_I infer that you are asking why your mother and I decided to have you when we were unsure whether or not she would have the strength to survive your birth or even your gestational period." Sarek had let his mind drift back to his days with Amanda Grayson for only a brief moment before answering his translation of his son's question._

"_Your mother was my mate. She wanted to bear me a child. I wanted a child born of her body."_

_Spock had heard the words his father had not said._

_They were in love and wanted to share their lives as fully as any other couple might strive to do. For the second time in Spock's life, he'd heard his father had admitting to making a decision based on sentiment, rather than logic._

"_Your own mate and children should require even less scrutiny, as they will be far more human than Vulcan," Sarek had said, allowing his confusion to show._

"_All indication suggest that the female twins Nyota carries are half Vulcan, Sa-mekh, rather than one quarter Vulcan. We do not yet understand why or how what we are currently calling paternally-initiated hybridogenesis has come to pass," he had explained. "However, since neither Nyota nor our daughters should expect to be in danger because of their heritage, and since no special precautions would appear to be necessary, Doctor McCoy and I intend to undertake the study of the matter."_

_Spock had come away from the conversation relieved. Not because he now knew he had been conceived in love — he'd had many years to integrate the knowledge that his father had loved mother and that his father loved him, into his consciousness; this new development was a logical extension of those facts, though he had not been convinced it was a fact in and of itself before now. He was simply pleased to confirm he had no need for additional concern about his mate's condition._

_Sarek had come away from the conversation torn. His son had clearly been pleased to learn his mother had not suffered during her pregnancy, and that it might follow that his wife — also a strong, healthy human woman — might not suffer during her own. This also pleased Sarek._

_But he would have been lying if he did not admit he was disappointed that his granddaughters would seemingly carry nothing of his late bond-mate._

He had immediately contacted Leonard McCoy.

* * *

Disclaimer: The characters and starship don't belong to me; I'm just giving them new lives and new situations.


	5. Down to the Bones

"Alright, Sawbones. Start talking."

McCoy looked from his glass of thirty-year old scotch and frowned.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am. _What_ did you call me?" he asked the pretty lieutenant glaring at him from across the neatly empty recreation room. "And what _exactly_ do you expect me to say to you?"

He'd chosen this particular lounge because, in spite of the comfortable faux-leather armchairs, simulated fireplace and book-lined walls, its lack of viewscreen to play a facsimile of the heavenly bodies gliding by the starship, its small size and generally poor acoustics for musical recordings and performances meant it wasn't very popular. He could reasonably expect to spend an evening alone with his whisky whenever he retreated to what the crew had inevitably dubbed the Bone Locker.

"'Sawbones,'" she quoted herself before pushing away from the closed door and moving towards the pair of brandy colored chairs flanking a small round table apparently carved from aged maple.

She lifted his bottle to peer at the label, then quirked up an eyebrow in an unconscious imitation of her damned husband.

"Sawbones," she said again. "'_Terran English_; _colloquial_, _antiquated__: a surgeon or physician._' Coined at a time when surgeons were considered little more than butchers, whose main duties were seen to be the amputation of limbs, rather than the respected practitioners we view them as today."

She plopped into the seat next to his and crossed her arms again.

"I take it you're displeased with me tonight?" he asked, dryly. He took a sip of whisky.

"I've been displeased with you for a lot longer than just tonight." She actually harrumphed at this. "This is just my first opportunity to talk to you about it, uninterrupted. Spill."

He stared at her in, if not complete, then at least abject, confusion. There were a number of things going on lately that might have upset her. For all he knew, it could have been simply the fact that he was a member of the gender she deemed responsible for the current state of her figure.

Not that she had anything to worry about, he noted after a quick glance at the long legs issuing forth from her short regulation skirt. So what if those legs were now topped with a round bump centered on her middle. She was still fine-looking woman. Looking at her was more than easy on the eyes; it was balm for the soul. Her green-blooded hobgoblin probably didn't know how good he had it. _Then again_, McCoy figured, _he probably did_.

The boy was cold, not stupid. Or blind.

"Which of the myriad of things we men undoubtedly do wrong, each and every day, do I stand accused of?" he asked. "I will endeavor to make it up to the lady, if I can't undo it."

Uhura smiled in spite of herself. She genuinely loved the cranky man seated next to her, and had tried numerous times to fix him up with a suitably tolerant woman. But his ex-wife had done a number on him that, so far, he hadn't been able to let any other woman undo. Not quite. And she wasn't sure she wanted him anywhere _near_ the only one to have ever come close.

"I'd like to know why Spock has to go to T'Khasi Vokaya to let _their_ doctors poke and pry at his gonads when you and your staff could just as easily do so here," she said, her expression darkening. "Bones, he really doesn't want to go. He'll do it because Starfleet ordered the tests, but he really doesn't want to go back there. Not for this."

McCoy leaned back in his chair. He ran a finger around the rim of his glass as he thought up an appropriate reply. Unable to come up with one, he decided to make do with an inappropriate one.

"Woman, what in god's name makes you think I, or any other medical professional on this ship, would want to fiddle around with your husband's family jewels?"

Uhura bit back a laugh as the image of just such a medical professional crossed her mind. The same image leapt into Bones's as he watched her struggle not to grin.

"She don't count!" he snapped, and the reference to a certain blonde nurse caused them both to lose the battle to maintain composure.

It felt good to laugh. There weren't many people who made him want to these days, Bones acknowledged as he roared alongside Uhura. His days of easy conviviality had gone out the same door his ex-wife had slammed in his face. He'd made new friends over the past nine years, first at the Academy, later on the Enterprise. But a slow chill would probably sneak up on Hades before he felt like the wildly fun-loving man he'd been before his marriage.

Uhura was breathless by the time she steered him back on track.

"Seriously, Len. Why won't you do it here? I won't believe you if you tell me you can't. And don't give me any nonsense about pointy ears or green blood, either. I know you two have secret man-crushes on each other. What gives?"

Much as he'd rather not be the one to have this conversation, he hated to disappoint the person who was his closest friend next to Jim Kirk. The fact that she was four months knocked up and as likely to dissolve into tears as she was to throw a right hook helped ease his decision.

"Darlin', I don't have to tell you what this could mean to Vulcan repopulation efforts," he said.

For the space of a long sip and a longer moment he was quiet, searching for the most diplomatic way to explain his dilemma. Diplomacy wasn't exactly his specialty.

"For us, this isn't much more than an interesting puzzle, hog-tied to a happy event," he eventually came up with. "For them, it could a mean a radical new take on how they go about rebuilding their race."

Uhura leaned forward, and rested her hands on her knees. Shoulders drooping and head tilted toward the floor, she looked at McCoy out of the corner of her eyes.

"I know," she whispered, then sighed. "Spock knows it, too. But that doesn't explain why you can't just do your studies here and then send them your findings. It doesn't explain why I have to put up with Spock's voice making an android sound passionate in comparison every time we talk about going."

"Your pointy-eared lovebug _always_ sounds like an android!" Bones told her.

She aimed that mean right hook at the arm attached to hand holding the glass of thirty-year-old scotch.

* * *

"Maybe it's like with RPGs."

Spock's eyebrow slid up. The left one. Uhura, her head in his lap, smiled up at him and ran a finger over it.

"Rocket propelled grenades?"

"Role-playing games," she corrected with a laugh. "Very popular on Earth in the 20th and 21st centuries, I believe. They were usually set in one imagined fantasy-world or another. Was that redundant? 'Imagined fantasy world'?"

"Nyota…"

"Anyway, players adopted the personae of individual characters who were members of several available races. _Fantasy_ races, of course," she said cheerfully.

She raised both eyebrows, waiting for him to speak.

"Indeed," Spock replied after a pause.

Usually, Spock would have preferred to stay silent until a person made her point, but he knew Nyota desired a response from him. She wasn't trying to fundamentally change him, he knew, but she _did_ want him to at least be more aware of, and therefore more comfortable with, typical human conversation patterns. Usually, her lessons were limited to moments when they were alone and had nothing of consequence to discuss. She used non-verbal cues to alert him to her "teaching moments."

Usually, he was a willing student. Tonight, already having sensed where this conversation was going — most of her non sequiturs of late had to do with the reasons behind their upcoming trip to T'Khasi Vokaya — he was feeling less inclined towards tractability. Clearly, however, she would not continue without further encouragement from him.

As was often the case, when it pertained to the ways in which his bond-mate's mind worked, curiosity had won over impatience.

"And how are the circumstances played out in this game similar to our own?" he asked. He pulled her body more fully onto his lap, and relaxed his customary posture to snuggle with her on the common area sofa.

"In many of the games, I think… or in at least _one_ of the worlds in _one_ of the games… Let me explain about the races, first," she said, rubbing her cheek against his chest. She let out a soft purr at the feel of soft fabric against her skin. She really did love what she thought of as Spock's leisure-wear.

"The races, Nyota?"

"Hmmm? Oh yes, each world usually had at least three races of people. The good, the bad and the in-between. Or something like that. Humans and elves —" She felt him tense slightly at the word elves. "— were almost always were two of the races. And sometimes, they mated. The resulting children were called half-elves."

He stroked the growing belly hidden beneath her black night gown — really one the shirts he preferred to wear while off duty, but he'd long since come to terms with the idea that she _liked_ wearing his clothes. When he'd offered to procure identical ones for her sole use, she'd explained that she enjoyed wearing the shirts as much because they were _his_ as she did because they were comfortable. Now, he thought idly, he rather enjoyed seeing her wearing it. He kissed her forehead.

She continued without demanding of him more concrete feedback.

"When half-elves had children of their own — at least in _some_ of the worlds — with a human or with an elf, they didn't end up with quarter-humans, or quarter-elves. The children were either one or the other," she told him sleepily. "The genetics don't make sense if you only consider the human model of sex determination. But that's how it worked, at least in some of those worlds."

"That scenario differs completely from ours," he said quietly. The ministrations of his hands were, as he had hoped, lulling her to sleep. "If we were to follow the model of these… fantasy worlds, we would expect our children to be fully human, would we not?"

"Yeah, but I just meant… you know, the part about the genetics not making sense." She was near enough to sleep that she fumbled and slurred her words slightly. "And you, you know, you're sort of like a half-elf. Why should you make sense?"

"You've been spending too much time with Doctor McCoy," he whispered to his sleep-silly mate.

She giggled softly as he picked her up and carried her to their sleeping chamber.

* * *

McCoy couldn't sleep. He stared out into the darkness of his sleeping alcove. Three hours ago, he'd been laughing. Not the fake, kiss-ass — _polite laughter_ — expected of him whenever Jim dragged him off to some official social event. I wasn't the Gotcha! cackle of triumph that flew out on the (very few) occasions he'd managed to stump Spock, or at least trip him up with his own logic. It wasn't even the sometimes derisive/sometimes rueful chuckle that often burbled out of his chest after seeing Jim Kirk slip into skirt-chasing mode _again_. No, it was god's honest, bust-a-gut, piss-your-pants, glad-to-be-alive-and-_Damn!_ -do-I-feel-good laughter.

The only person who shared that kind of laughter with him these days was probably never going to talk to him again. That is, she'd never talk to him again if she managed to keep her hands from wrapping around his neck next time she saw him.

"_For us, this isn't much more than an interesting puzzle, hog-tied to a happy event,"_ he'd said._ "For them, it could a mean a radical new take on how they go about rebuilding their race."_

At first, when she'd sat forward and started staring at the floor, he'd been afraid she was about to start crying.

Call him what you will, and McCoy suspected most called him a sour old cuss behind his back, he was a sucker for a lady in tears. He didn't have time for whining women, but he couldn't bear to see a _lady_ like the lieutenant in cry.

"_I know._" Her voice had been so low, he'd had to strain to hear it. She looked at him out of the corners of dry, but sad, eyes. _"Spock knows it, too. But that doesn't explain why you can't just do your studies here and send them your findings. It doesn't explain why I have to put up with Spock's voice making an android sound passionate in comparison every time we talk about going."_

"_Your pointy-eared lovebug_ always _sounds like an android!"_ he'd said, and she'd thrown a punch that'd nearly made him drop his whisky.

They'd laughed a little then, but it hadn't been the same as before. Besides, she'd gotten serious again, pretty quick.

So he'd done the only thing his whisky-addled brain could come up with at the time. He'd told her the truth.

"_Ambassador Sarek asked me to send him his son_."

She'd gotten that look in her eye. The one that said "I know you're as warm as oven-fresh peach cobbler under all that crust." But Bones was sure she'd see things differently in the morning.

Their friendship was good as dead, soon as she had time to think things over. Or as soon as the damned hormones started working their magic again.

Pretty certain he would be kicking himself for what he was about to do before the night was over, but equally certain he wasn't going to get much sleep until he got it over with, McCoy climbed out of bed.

He pulled uniform pants over his pajama bottoms and jammed his feet into a pair of leather slippers.

He left his quarters before he could change his mind.

Several corridors and two turbolift trips later, he found himself facing a couple of junior communications officers.

"Which one of you is awake enough to put me in touch with Ambassador Sarek on the Vulcan colony?"

* * *

A considerable advantage of being chief communications officer, as well as a dab hand utilizing and manipulating the tools of the trade, was not needing anyone's assistance when making ship to planet transmissions over vast expanses of space.

Leonard McCoy was long gone from the main communications center by the time Lieutenant Uhura entered and gave the two junior officers on duty a unexpected break.

Ten minutes after their cheerful exit amid promises to return in an hour — they'd both heard of the odd sleeping habits of expectant mothers and were not shocked to see their chief so early in the morning, though her offer of relief was something of a surprise — she was sitting in her private office and had initiated contact and was gazing at the face her husband across huge distances of both time and space.

"Ambassador Spock," she said. "Can you tell me why my husband is terrified at the thought of going anywhere _near_ your people?"

* * *

**A/N:** After the last chapter Quill and Saber brought up a good point about the genetics of sex-determination. I'm not going to address the issue in the story for a few more chapters, but in the interest of not turning anyone off with bad _basic_ science I'd recommend Googling sex-determination +bees to anyone who can't wait. National Geographic published a great, easy to understand article on the subject in 2003 or 2004. But, that's not quite what's happening in _this_ story, either. If you prefer reading along to doing homework, just keep in mind that not all species follow the XY model.

Disclaimer: The characters and starship don't belong to me; I'm just giving them new lives and new situations.


	6. Tea and Sympathetic Natures

"Why did you join Starfleet, Ms. Uhura?" The elder Spock hadn't even blinked at the bluntness of her question. "With your proficiency in language and linguistics, why did you not pursue a position with a university or research institute? I've read your file. Any one of them on Earth, and many throughout the galaxy, would have welcomed you. If your interest did not lie in academe, why did you not become a member of the Federation Diplomatic Corps?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it without having spoken. Something, a recognition that her husband often used the same conversational tactics, perhaps, kept Uhura from protesting was appeared to be an abrupt change of subject.

"My mother's family loves language," she said at last. "I don't know if the Nyota Uhura you knew ever told you this. Of course, you realize that even before Africa became a single nation, many indigenous languages had been threatened with extinction. My family sought to preserve them, and it became something of a tradition among the sons and daughters of Wakufunzi. Eventually, it came to be their way of life.

"You've met my uncle, Tabansi. His name is not Kiswahili. He was named after a Nigerian family my grandparents knew," she explained. "It means 'he who endures.'"

She settled into her chair, preparing to tell the long story.

"His fiancée was in Starfleet. She enlisted right out secondary school, and became a security officer. But, like most members of my mother's family, she had a knack for learning languages and had been admitted to Starfleet Academy to study them officially after what was to be her last posting an enlistee.

"She served on the Kelvin, sir. Estella Libertad y Dominguez. I was born six years after what would have been her twenty-second birthday. My mother named me after her. She said it seemed fitting.

"After Estella died, Uncle Tabansi joined Starfleet. He's also in communications, although his specialty is in the systems. He's my favorite uncle, and he always spent extra time with me whenever he could visit us. Even before I knew Estella's story, I wanted to be like him.

"Learning new languages has always been easy for me; it is what my family has done for a long time, after all. But I wanted to honor my uncle, and the woman whose name I carry, though I never knew her and know little of who she was. It's enough that Uncle Tabansi loved her. And he loves Starfleet, even though some say it took Estella away from him," she said. "There are plenty of Wakufunzi diplomats already, and there are enough of us at universities and research institutes, sir."

Ambassador Spock stared back at her. The Nyota Uhura he had known had told him many stories, but, of course, this had not been one of them. Although her Tabansi Wakufunzi had married Estella Libertad, she had never said if this aunt influenced her to join Starfleet.

"You must feel free to call me, Spock, Lieutenant. I believe that is what we agreed upon, that is, if it does not cause you discomfort or confusion to do so," he told her and Uhura recognized his attempt to put her at ease. She'd forgotten he tended to do that.

"I will do so only if you remember that I am Nyota."

He nodded his acknowledgment.

"Nyota… my reasons for joining Starfleet were very different from yours, and although we have not discussed it extensively, I know that your Spock's were similar, if not the same, as my own," he told her.

He told her of the prejudice he'd endured on Vulcan as a child, and about the audience with the Vulcan High Council when he'd learned of his acceptance into the Academy of Sciences.

It had been almost exactly the same for her Spock, she confirmed. But hearing the tale from one who was Spock, but not her husband changed the story. She didn't know why, but it did.

"Many on Vulcan could not accept me as I was, Nyota," Ambassador Spock was saying. "It would have been the same for my counterpart in your timeframe."

She nodded slowly, understanding blossoming even before his next words.

"Now, having lived through the tragic event of six years ago, they see he may have some worth to them after all. It can not be easy for him to place himself in their hands, Nyota. Especially if he suspects they wish take more than he is willing to give."

* * *

"What is wrong?"

Uhura started, shot her husband a questioning look, and then offered him a small smile.

"Wha— oh! Nothing. Nothing's _wrong_, Spock," she said.

"You appeared… pensive." He moved to stand beside her. "If sharing your thoughts would ease the burden that weighs on your mind, or if you simply need physical comfort while you work them out for yourself, I am here."

She looked up from the tea cooling on the table in front of her, and this time gave him a real smile. Her hand sought his.

"I know you are," she said, tugging his hand a little.

Without letting go, he took the chair sitting caddy-corner to hers.

She watched the fingers of the hand not holding his as she spread it over her belly.

"I was just thinking about how I nearly lost all of this before I ever had it," she told him. "We were just becoming good friends and I almost blew it all." She paused.

"The thing is I knew the risk. Or rather, I knew I was risking our chances of becoming more intimate acquaintances. I was already attracted to you, of course; but I've been attracted to men before, you know? I didn't know you were going to be the one who mattered." She met his eyes again. "And I had no way of knowing that you might one day be attracted to me. Or that you might already _be_ attracted to me."

Spock squeezed her hand, ran his thumb across its smooth back.

"At what time did you think that you might have risked a potential friendship with me?" he asked.

Looking back, he realized there had been many instances, when they were getting to know one another, that she had trod carefully so as not to offend his Vulcan reserve. He had admired and appreciated her efforts, but ultimately acknowledged that as her ease in speaking her mind to him had grown, so had his esteem for her.

"I don't recall a moment, even early in our acquaintance, when you said or did anything that made me wish to spend less time with you. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"The first time I asked you about the Vulcan Academy of Sciences," she admitted. "I didn't know if I'd gone too far."

_They'd both heard wonderful things about the new teahouse not far from campus, but neither had ever been there before._

_While Spock wasn't usually in the habit of engaging in conversation that had nothing to do with whatever work was before him, his reserve and reluctance to make "small talk" had been no match for Uhura's cheerful, and deft, ability to link apparently disparate subjects. Two years before, a discussion about newly available technology for peripheral communications equipment — Spock had been a speaker at a supplemental workshop — had somehow segued into a conversation about their mutual enjoyment of various teas. He'd already known that the pretty cadet was very well regarded in the Xenolinguistics Department and his lack of annoyance at changes in subject were a testament that her popularity among her instructors might have had as much to do with her intellect as it did with her face._

_Since then, they'd exchanged favorite blends and eventually graduated to sharing the occasional pot in his office. They'd rarely spent purely social time together off-campus, however. Sitting at an outdoor table at this teahouse was one such rarity._

"_I have never seen you use sweetener," he commented. She'd just started a third cup of their shared pot. "In my observations, many humans — especially human women — of Earth's western hemisphere prefer not to consume hot beverages in this manner."_

"_I'm sweet enough!" she quipped teasingly. She chuckled to ensure he recognized her attempt at humor._

_Spock had debated whether inquiring which physiological deviations might account for her skin possessing a sweeter-than-average flavor than that of other humans could be construed as an inappropriate attempt at humor, and whether it would even _be perceived_ as an attempt at humor, but she spoke again before he could make up his mind and (possibly) put thought into words._

"_Actually, the truth is, I find it easier to experience and discern the mix of flavors and scents of when trying a new blend if I don't cover them up. I might try honey or sugar or stevia after I've got an idea of what I'm dealing with. But why mess with the potential for perfection?"_

_Spock thought her strategy wise, and told her so._

_Talk drifted to her homeland, her childhood adventures and her decision to attend the academy after she'd graduated from university. The transition had not been without incident, but she'd been happy for the new experiences._

"_The cold was the hardest thing to get used to!" she declared finally. _

_In spite of the warm-for-a-San-Francisco-spring day, both of them wore thick sweaters over their civilian clothes._

"_I, too, experienced some difficulty adjusting to the climate change when I came to Earth," he told her. "Like all Vulcans, I had been taught to modify, when a need arose, such processes as those which control body temperature, but had not needed to utilize the technique very often, and so was out of practice."_

_She smiled at that._

"_I wish to ask a question whose answer may be personal in nature," she said, switching from Standard to Vulcan. That more precise language, she thought, would leave less room for mistakes. "If that turns out to be the case, please do not think that I will take offense at your refusal to answer. However, as I have come become more intimately acquainted with you, I have become increasingly curious about a particular event from your past. You have often reminded me of the value of curiosity."_

"_Ask your question, Nyota," he said in the same tongue. She had just shared much of her life with him. It was human nature for her to wish the same of him. "I will answer it if I think it appropriate to do so."_

"_Why did you choose Starfleet over the Science Academy?" she asked. "A lot of people would cut off their right arms just to read some of the research produced there. But you chose Starfleet, instead? Why?"_

_He took a great deal of time — barely aware of the passing minutes — to find the words he wanted to say. This was not a question he had been prepared to face so soon, if ever. She waited patiently for him to answer or not answer._

"_There are many reasons why," he said finally, "but, ultimately, the answer is that I chose the more logical of the two."_

"_How is _Starfleet_ a more logical choice for one of the most brilliant persons alive than his field's greatest learning institution?" she asked, her voice full of an emotion he could not quite identify. "There is an old aphorism on Earth; 'Better to be a large fish in a small pond.' Have you heard it?"_

_At his nod, she continued._

"_Had you been less genius, or less humble, I would think that those words might be an axiom applicable to the logic applied in making your decision. But since you are neither, I am simply… confused."_

_In her brown, expressive, _human_, eyes, Spock had seen neither censure nor pity nor disdain — all things he had recognized in past inquisitors when this particular subject had been addressed. She had shown only compassion, and perhaps, he felt, the possibility of comprehension._

_Making a decision that would change his life nearly as much as refusing a place at the Vulcan Academy of Sciences, he ended up telling her more of the truth than he had ever shared with anyone else._

.

"Nyota," Spock said, memories of the day fresh in his mind despite the years that had passed. His thumb continued its lazy circuit over the back of her hand. "You were never in any danger of 'blowing it' with me. Least of all on that day.

"I, too, already desired you physically; and much like you I didn't suspect that you could possibly feel the same for me. I went to that teahouse hoping only to extend and deepen our friendship. I knew achieving that end might someday require telling you more of my past. That _some_day became _that_ day was unexpected, but it was not a deterrent."

He stretched over the table and brushed the fingers of his free hand across her cheek.

"You were very brave that day," he said. "It was a question many who had known me a long time had never asked; and one many who didn't know me at all had asked only because they lacked knowledge or understanding of the Vulcan idea of privacy.

"You knew me and understood that part of my culture, and yet you asked anyway. I could only conclude that either you deemed the benefit of gaining such knowledge to be of sufficient value to ask in spite of the danger of causing offense, or that you felt that our friendship had progressed to the point where there was no danger in your asking.

"Whichever turned out to be the case, I wished to answer your question because I believed that either meant that you might view me in a light similar to the one in which I had been seeing you."

They'd never had one of those "when did you first love me" talks that so many couples had when the feelings were still fresh. Uhura found them silly; Spock would never have thought to engage in any discourse of the like. But, suddenly, this conversation began to sound like one to them both. She made a note to tell her daughters this story if they ever asked.

"At the time, I thought I knew what that answer cost you," she said. At last, she picked up the tea and sipped. "I thought I understood what happened the day you told them 'no', but now, I'm not sure I did." She fell quiet again, took another sip and savored it.

"Spock, you let me argue the point, for the sake of testing your adherence to logic. But your patience was probably strengthened by a nascent love. If you hadn't half loved me already, would you have been able to overlook the inherent, if unintentional — and I promise it was unintentional — cruelty of my words?"

"Now you are so certain I loved you already?" Spock was teasing. Before today, neither had been sure of _when_ — they'd just accepted one day that it was already an _is_ — of loving the other.

"Don't be silly Spock!" She tried to pull her hand away. "Of course you did! Otherwise, you would have walked away from me that day, and we would have been nothing more than instructor and cadet."

.

"_You refused because of an implied insult to your mother's people?" she asked._

"_The insult was not only _implied_, Nyota" he pointed out._

"_Yes. You are right. But would it not have been more logical to accept admittance and prove to them that despite — perhaps even because of — your 'disadvantage' you were bound to succeed beyond even their expectations for a fully Vulcan candidate?"_

"_You posit a scenario that assumes much: First, you presume that I would have desired to show them their error. Second, that they would have recognized any accomplishment I might make in the future as anything other than the result of their unwilling, but necessary acceptance of an unwanted element. And third, that I would, in fact, have been successful enough during my time at the academy so as to impress them._

_"I have not implied that any of these things were the case, Nyota." The reproof could only be called gentle, but she recognized if for the admonishment it was meant to be, nonetheless. "I thank you for your belief in my abilities, but you should not allow it to affect the parameters of your argument."_

_Disappointment warred with resignation and anger on her face as she considered his words. Years later, he would remain unsure why he had been so certain that her negative feelings had been directed at the councilors, rather than towards him and his scolding. When he saw her settle on sadness in the end, however, he decided, again, to attempt humor. He spoke before giving himself to reflect on the ramifications of his words._

"_Besides," he said in Standard, his face never shifting from the cool mask he'd maintained throughout their dissection of his choice, "there is a significant advantage to my choice: if I had chosen to attend the Science Academy, it is unlikely you would have ever met me."_

.

"I'm never 'silly,' beloved," he said. "But tell me, although you, in this case, are correct, I must ask how you are so sure of something which I was unaware of until much later."

"Never underestimate a woman in love, Spock," she said, a lazy smile hanging about her lips. "Plus, you melted my heart that when you pointed out the only true benefit of joining Starfleet."

Instantly, Spock was ashamed of himself.

"I implied that the benefit was solely yours. You don't usually find arrogance to be an attractive trait," he said.

"I knew you were _teasing_, Spock. I Hear that, too. And I was touched that you would even try. No matter how it sounded in the end. I'd thought I had been standing on the edge of loving you. What you said, why you said it — how I _took_ it — just tells me that I'd already fallen."

They sat in silence, Spock processing what she had said, Uhura watching him think.

"And," she added, her eyes alight with mischief, "I was Listening _really_ closely."

* * *

**A/N:** This was a very difficult chapter for me to write, although it was the first one I came up with.

Usual disclaimer: I don't Star Trek or the characters; I'm just creating new lives and new situations for them.


	7. Basic Biology

"I take it back. Maybe I _don't_ have a reasonable understanding of basic biology," Nyota Uhura said sadly. Her whole body seemed to slump down in her seat. "Tell me I don't understand, Bones. If I'm correctly processing what you just said, then this situation should be impossible for more reasons than I realized. None of this should be happening, and my husband has every reason to be worried about going to the colony. Tell me I've got it wrong."

She was huddled in one of the guest chairs in front of his desk. He watched as she rearranged her body, seeking a comfortable position — which he was pretty sure she wouldn't find. Not in that chair. Not with her four and half month old belly changing her center of gravity and forcing her to change the way she carried herself.

There were times when McCoy would have tried to cheer up her with some down-home talk or by tossing out one of his typically cranky admonishments to "stop beating the cat before she knew if the milk was spilt." Orneriness had built half his reputation; letting her see beneath it had earned him her love.

There were times when turning it on was guaranteed to make her smile. This wasn't one of those times.

He picked up the PADD he'd been quoting from and moved from behind his desk. Sometimes it was a good idea to be in hugging distance when you had to give a pregnant lady bad news. Especially if the pregnant lady in question was one of your closest friends.

"I'm afraid you understood me perfectly, darlin'," he said evenly, his alert eyes scanning her person for any signs of increased distress as he perched on a corner of the desk. "None of this should be happening. And Spock isn't crazy to think that maybe the Vulcans have something up their sleeves this time."

She stood up abruptly, the added baby weight making her movements less fluid than they had once been, but somehow not detracting from her grace.

"It doesn't make sense!" she hissed, struggling to keep her voice from rising on the tides of her emotions. "That's not the Vulcan way! They're supposed to be _honest_, Len. They'd take the logical route, yes, but they would be honest about it. Wouldn't they?"

McCoy, now certain that the time for that hug had arrived, wrapped his arms around the woman standing before him, the PADD still in one hand.

"Sug'," he murmured in her ear, "we've never seen them desperate before. We don't know what they'd be willing to do, if it meant saving their people. That's what's been riding your hobgoblin."

He gave her a little squeeze, then ran a hand down her hair before pulling back to look at her, once again.

"That, and he's running scared that, if they succeed, it'll tear the two of you— ." He glanced down and aimed a rueful grin at the round ball that was her tummy. "The _four_ of you apart."

She reached up to place a hand on each of his cheeks. Her dark, intense eyes held his.

"Never gonna happen, Bones," she told him. Then, smiling just a little, she got on tiptoe to kiss his forehead.

"And you're going to help me make sure of it," she said, dropping back down onto feet clad in sensibly low-heeled boots and taking the PADD from him.

McCoy sighed as he walked her to the door of his office.

"Now why did I have a feelin' you were gonna say that?" he asked as the doors slid open.

* * *

"Go easy on this one, okay?" Uhura pulled Spock's head down for a lingering kiss before allowing him to leave their quarters. "You've only got a handful more if she doesn't work out."

In preparation for their imminent three-month leave on Vulcan Beta, both she and he had taken on extra observational shifts to facilitate deciding who would be their primary replacements. Not everyone was suited to working the extended bridge shifts. Tonight, Spock was observing — testing out, really — one of his potential choices.

Once the doors closed behind her husband, Uhura curled up on the sofa in their quarters with the PADD McCoy had given to her earlier.

"It wasn't easy getting this, Nyota," he'd told her before she left sickbay. "It's still considered classified information. Vulcans don't let go of their secrets easily."

"That doesn't make sense, either," she had protested. "Not now. If they had more eyes and hands and minds at their disposal, things might go so much more quickly. Sometimes I can't believe how stubborn— No, that's just the hormones speaking. I can believe it. I can even understand it. But right now, I can't accept it."

She'd promised to read the information her friend had taken such pains to acquire. In the morning, she'd have to return the PADD, and the data it contained, to the doctor.

.

**_A Simplified Understanding of Reproducing Vulcans:_**

**_From Germ Cell Differentiation in the Production Sex Cells in the Vulcan Male and the Vulcan Female to the Gestational Processes _**

_As in most humanoids species, spermatogenesis, the process of gametogenesis in males, is the process by which male gonocytes, termed spermatogonia, mature into gametes or spermatozoa. While the process differs somewhat among species, there are many instances during the three stages of spermatogenesis in which all known species are aligned:_

_Primordial germ cells, located in gonadal ridge of late-stage embryos_,_ are the progenitors to gametes in both male and female embryos across all known species. Known as spermatogonia in males, these are most simply described as the primitive reproductive cells. The changes in these cells as they mature comprise the process._

_After undergoing up to five stages of differentiation and mitotic division, the diploid spermatogonia develop into primary spermatocytes through a meiotic division in a process called **spermatocytogenesis**, . _

_During **spermatidogenesis**, the secondary spermocytes enter a second meiotic_ _division, forming **spermatids**. _

_During **spermiogenesis**, the final stage of spermatogenesis, haploid spermatids become spermatozoa._

_The order of this process does not vary in most known humanoid species. _

_.  
_

The report hadn't even gotten to the pertinent data and already Uhura felt her head starting to ache.

_Simplified my ass!_, she thought as she slogged through the dense scientific lingo. Though for the most part she was relearning biological processes she'd first learned in primary school, she searched for an answer to the mystery that was her daughters. Nothing, so far, was pertinent to her quest.

She understood that during prophase One of meiosis, homologous pairs of chromosomes met and often recombined to ensure genetic variation. It followed that if Spock had somehow avoided this process, it was entirely possible that he might produce sperm containing only Vulcan genetic material.

It was entirely within the realm of possibility, though seemingly unlikely, as the report said Vulcan spermatogenesis though slightly different from that in humans, usually included this process. Still, if the girls were truly half-Vulcan, it _had_ to have happened.

Except.

"Except, if that happened," she spoke aloud, "how could we be expecting _daughters_?"

She paged back down to the section on sex determination in Vulcans. It didn't exactly follow the XY/XX model of humans.

This time, she read far more closely, even taking carefully detailed notes as she went along. In the end, though, she had to concede defeat. There were no more answers for her here than she'd gotten in McCoy's office.

She'd switched off the PADD and gotten up to make a pot of herbal tea when a new thought occurred to her.

Briskly, she walked over the comm unit and contacted the doctor.

When his sleepy face flashed on the screen, she brandished the PADD for him to see.

"Bones," she said, agitation coating her words, "if this thing is right, my daughters can't exist. If this thing right, _Spock_ shouldn't exist either!"

McCoy faced sank from tired to miserable.

"Damn it," he said. "I guess I shoulda _known_ you'd figure that one out."

* * *

**A/N:** Just edited this piece in preparation for posting the next chapter, which is finally almost ready. (23 August 2009)

Usual disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, the Enterprise, or even most of the character; I just liking giving them new lives and new situations.


	8. Advanced Vulcan Physiology

"So?" Uhura asked. "Are you going to explain this or what? Do you even _have_ an explanation?"

McCoy sighed. He really didn't think he was up for another intense late-night communication. He also knew he didn't have much of a choice. The last thing he needed was to be on the bad side of an angry pregnant woman.

"Look, dollface," he grumbled, "take a seat, will you? This is probably gonna take a while."

Uhura continued to stand, leaning on both hands and glaring into the view screen.

"I mean it, darlin'," he warned. "No sittin', no explainin'!"

Clearly reluctant to follow orders from the man she thought was doing everything in his power to piss her off, Uhura sat.

_It's not me_, McCoy reminded himself. _It's the situation. And the hormones. A drink would be a fine thing right now. A fine thing._

Shaking his head, he gathered himself together. This probably would take some time.

"Thank you, gorgeous," he said sweetly. "Now, I know things look a little crazy right now, but I've been thinking and I've come up with some theories."

Uhura started to ask a question and he threw up a hand to hold her off.

"Give me a chance, okay? Like I said, this is kinda complicated.

"As you obviously read, Vulcan physiology differs from ours in more than just organ location, blood composition and body density. Their reproductive system _really_ diverges from what you probably learned from studying human biology, am I right about that?"

At her nod, he went on.

"Well, aside from that curious 'reproductive gland' which I still don't know the purpose of, sex-determination is also rather more involved than our XY/XX model. You with me so far?"

Uhura grimaced.

"_Gods_, Bones, I know all this already! When are you going to cut to the chase?"

"Uh-uh," he chastised. "If we're gonna talk about this, you can't go off gettin' upset about everything I say. It's important that we go over everything, okay darlin'?"

She had the grace to look ashamed of her impatience.

"I'm sorry, Len," she said. "It's just… it's just that I hate feeling like I'm in the dark. You know?"

She looked down into her lap.

McCoy had a feeling the waterworks were about to spout again. He groaned inwardly. He wasn't going to be having that drink anytime soon.

"Look, darlin', why don't I come over there so we can talk about this face to face?" he asked. "Would that be better for you?"

When she looked up again, her eyes were bright with tears and the droplets clung like diamonds to her long, dark eyelashes.

"Would you, Len?" she asked. "Gods, I hate being like this. Like some stupid woman in a bad romantic vid or something."

She shook her head.

"Don't worry about it sweetheart," he said. "You can blame the damned hormones, if you want. That's what I'm doing right now."

The last got a laugh out of her, and he felt comfortable enough to end the call and make his way to her quarters.

.

.

"Sug'," he said, his whisky-rich voice melting over her, "we really gotta stop meeting like this. Might make your Vulcan jealous."

When McCoy gave her a lazy, seductive wink, Uhura chuckled and stepped aside to let him into her quarters.

"I really am sorry about this, Len," she said as they walked over to the small sofa in the common area and sat. "I'm not usually this annoying, am I?"

She looked over at him, worry written all over her face.

"No, but ever since you married Mister Spock I figured it was bound to happen eventually," he deadpanned.

She burst into a fit of giggles that left her gasping for breath.

"I swear, Len," she said, nearly choking on laughter, "if you make me pee my pants, you'll be the one cleaning up the mess."

McCoy offered her another of his devastating smiles, but decided it was time to get down to business.

"All right, sug'," he said, "let's get back to it, then. Sex-determination is usually pretty straightforward in therians. XX, XY and all that. And you know about the SRY gene and all that. Now, skipping over those rare cases of XX-males and XY-females — which have mostly been eliminated, anyway — any human born with a Y chromosome and a functioning SRY gene comes out male.

"But things aren't so simple for Vulcans. For one thing, they don't have an SRY gene and since all the author of that very clandestine report I let read wrote was that 'sex-determination among Vulcans is decided by many factors' we don't even know if they have an equivalent.

"So, knowing what little we know, it isn't unreasonable to think that it should have been impossible for Amanda Grayson and Sarek to produce a son. Human embryos just can't be pheonotypically male without a functioning SRY gene.

"Obviously, the impossible was possible because they had Spock. And before you ask, he was conceived the old-fashioned way. No genetic engineering involved. I know because I asked Ambassador Sarek. Most uncomfortable conversation I _ever_ had, by the way, and one I hope I never have to repeat. But, I did it for _you_, doll."

Uhura, who had been listening intently and looking increasingly disturbed throughout his explanation, laughed.

"So, what does this mean?" she asked. She tried, with quite a bit of success, even, to wipe the smile from her face.

McCoy sighed. The next part wasn't going to go over very well.

"I don't know yet," he said. "But I suspect — well, _one_ of my theories, anyway — is that the human body is incredibly adaptable. If it wasn't we'd still be cavemen and wouldn't be having this conversation. Where there's a will, there's a way. I think it just must might be possible that Lady Amanda's body just found a way."

Uhura thought this over for a moment.

"And, I guess that would mean my body 'found a way,' too," she said quietly.

"Yeah," McCoy said. "Looks like."

She frowned.

"And now the Vulcans are going to want to know how," she mused. "Because if two human women were able to make half-Vulcan babies, they probably believe that there might be a way those babies can make full-Vulcan babies one day."

"Yeah," McCoy said again.

Uhura took a deep breath and tried to shake off her lingering fears.

"So, how do we figure this out? What's next?"

"Well, first, we need to figure out if it's the human body adapting or if it's the Vulcan," he told her. "It won't be easy for them to start experimenting on you, and Lady Amanda isn't around for them to try it on her."

She breathed a quick sigh of relief over a lump of grief. Most of those lingering fears had been that they _could_ and _would_ try to figure her out.

"Testing the Vulcan side of things is gonna be a little hard, considering we don't have a control available on the Enterprise. No full Vulcans to, uh, fiddle with," he explained. "Luckily, during that very uncomfortable conversation, Ambassador Sarek offered himself up in the name of science.

"Now, seeing that he's Spock's daddy, he isn't exactly ideal. It would be better to use a few unrelated Vulcans so we could rule out any family-specific traits, but we have to work with what we've got.

"We'll go from there, but if we find out the adaptations are more on the Vulcan side than on the human side, then you're in the clear, at least."

An older fear bubbled up from Uhura's stomach.

"And what does that mean for Spock?" she wanted to know.

McCoy frowned.

"I'm still working on that," he admitted.

* * *

Leonard McCoy sat tapping a stylus against his chin the next morning. His attention was fully focused on the Vulcan face on his view screen.

"I understand your concerns," Ambassador Spock assured him. "In fact, doctor, I concur with your estimation of possible repercussions pending the outcome of the proposed tests. My father may believe Vulcan integrity will prevent the occurrence of anything… untoward. I remain unconvinced."

Bones grumbled under his breath about pointy-eared bastards who used a sack full of words when a handful would do.

Spock heard him and offered the doctor a rare half-Vulcan smile.

"Indeed, Bones," he said, "fewer words would have been more than adequate. However, having spent several decades getting chastised for appearing to be either too reticent or too verbose when speaking to your counterpart has failed to enhance my ability to decipher which method to use under what circumstances."

McCoy was about to let loose with earful of invective when a sudden thought slammed into his aching head: the old Vulcan was _teasing _him. _Just as smart-mouthed as the other one_, he thought.

"Hmpf!" he said aloud. "Anyway, it's all right and good you agreein' with me an' all. The question is: what do you think you can do about it? 'Cause your daddy sure wasn't much help. 'I assure you doctor, your concerns are unfounded.' Unfounded, my ass!"

The old ambassador inclined his head.

"Again, you are correct," he said.

McCoy waited for him to continue.

For most of the conversation, he admitted to himself, he was just being his usual gruff self. This Spock claimed they were great friends in his timeline, and Bones was willing to reserve judgment on that one. With this Spock, at least. But as several seconds stretched out during which neither spoke, and during which the doctor felt his headache spreading, McCoy started to get pissed for real.

"Well?" he snapped, slamming his hand down on his desk.

That damned eyebrow sprang up.

"Forgive me, Doctor," Spock said, eyes twinkling. "I did not wish to offend your ears by over-speaking."

McCoy groaned.

"No, _I_ am the one who's sorry, Ambassador," he lied. "Please. Do you happen to have a plan in that pointy-eared head of yours for how we might be able to keep your daddy's colleagues from stealin' Spock's sperm soon as we step off the ship two weeks from now?"

Spock didn't bat an eyelash, raise an eyebrow or incline his head.

"I must commend you on your use of alliteration, Bones. Under the circumstances, I find it really quite fascinating that you were able to manage it," he said in that placid voice McCoy had gotten used to hearing from the man's younger counterpart. "You may rest easy, however. I think you will find, if you have not already, that I endeavor to _always_ have a plan."

Ten minutes later, McCoy turned away from the now-blank screen, muttering about crazy Vulcans who could crack jokes in the middle of a crisis. But he couldn't prevent the satisfied smile from creeping up on his face.

The green-blooded devil could be _damned_ crafty when he needed to be, the doctor thought. The young one sure could learn a thing or two from the old one.

* * *

Six hours after _that_, Jim Kirk stumbled into McCoy's office fell into a chair. He immediately popped up and rounded the doctor's desk, opened a lower drawer and snagged a bottle of dark liquid.

"Cup?" he grunted.

McCoy opened another drawer, pulled out a sturdy white mug and handed to the captain.

"You're welcome," he said with a mild sneer. "Don't suppose you wanna talk about it?"

Kirk poured a good measure into the mug, and took a good slug before placing the bottle on the desk. He walked back around the desk and resumed his seat.

"Bones, I don't know how I'm going to survive the next one-thousand, eight hundred and twenty-four hours," he groaned.

McCoy shot him a devilish grin.

"You been hanging out with the Vulcan again?" If Jim was calculating the hours of the next few months, they were probably all in trouble.

Kirk took another gulp and scooted his chair closer to his friend's desk. He put the cup down and reached for the bottle again. McCoy swatted his hand away. The captain sighed and sat back.

"No," he sighed. "I just spent half a shift listening to Uhura's replacement drone in that impossibly monotone voice of his whenever there was a message to be conveyed. Which didn't happen very often, but still. It was enough to give everyone a massive headache. Or drive us to drink. I've chosen the latter, as you can see. My liver might not live 'til she gets back."

McCoy's crack of laughter filled the small room.

"Damn! If it's this bad and they're not even gone yet, I might just have to hide the good stuff."

Kirk glared at him.

"Do it and you just might find yourself quartered down by the engineering decks," he growled.

The good doctor just laughed again.

"At least that'll leave me closer to Mr. Scott's stash." He poured another, smaller, drink for his best friend. "Anyway," he said, "I wouldn't worry so much if I were you. It probably won't be as bad as you think."

Kirk raised questioning eyebrows. When McCoy didn't elaborate, he brought up his real fear.

"Bones, what if they don't come back?" he asked after taking a sip. "With all this secret shit that's been going on with Spock and the Council, how are we supposed to be sure we aren't going to be stuck with Lieutenant, Junior Grade Saunders warming Uhura's chair for the foreseeable future?"

McCoy snickered and pulled out a cup for himself.

"See? I _knew_ that was really what had you all hetted up!" he said, slamming his hand down on his desk for the second time that day. "But, like I said, don't worry. I've been talking to the other Spock. And guess what, Jim. He has a _plan_."

McCoy wiggled his eyebrows and raised his cup in a silent toast before taking his first sip.

* * *

**A/N:** Yikes! It's been one month and two days since I updated. Sorry, this chapter has been moldering on my hard-drive while I dithered over the believability of the fake-science and interactions between the characters. I didn't change the science, but I did bring Kirk (and poor Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Saunders) into the picture. Hope it works. Sorry it all took so long.

Usual disclaimer: Nothing's mine but the fake-science, and even that is based on real science.


	9. Duty and Pleasure

Uhura pulled her husband's arm more firmly around her shoulder. She drew up her knees as far as they would go and shifted on the sofa until she was pressed firmly against his side, her swollen tummy wedged into the crook between his legs and abdomen. Finding a comfortable lounging position — and sleeping position — was becoming increasingly difficult, but Spock had learned to become an amazingly adept and accommodating pillow and prop for her growing body. She laced her fingers through his and raised the joined hands to her lips.

"We're only staying long enough for the girls to be born," she assured him for what felt like the ten thousandth time. Except she knew that what had felt like the last nine thousand four hundred eighty-six assurances — ever since she and Bones had discussed his theories on the origins of her daughters' unexpected genetic make-up — had been for herself as much as they had been for him. "By the time anyone decides it wouldn't be indecorous to start poking and prodding _me_, we'll be back here, safe and sound, out of their reach."

When Spock scooped her up and placed her gently in his lap, she silently marveled at — and thanked all the gods for — his strength, even as she basked in the depth of physical affection he only bestowed on her when they were alone.

She nuzzled his neck, reveling in the fragrance of his skin. One of the benefits of pregnancy, she had discovered, was a more acute sense of smell. Contentment began to override concern as she started to succumb to his comforting presence.

Spock felt his bond-mate relax his arms. Tension drained out of her as she breathed into his neck. Careful to keep his own reservations from swamping her new-found ease, he swam in the contentedness washing over her. He kissed the soft, closely cropped curls on top of her head and brushed his fingertips over her growing belly.

"While I appreciate your desire to reassure me, Nyota," he said, "your words — however often you speak them — will not lessen my desire to keep you out of the hands of my father's people. You are _mine_, beloved." Her delighted shiver at his declaration leaked through their link. "It is my duty and my pleasure to protect what is mine."

A languid tilt of her head had dark brown eyes meeting dark brown eyes. She reached a graceful hand towards his face and he caught it against his cheek. His lips were already meeting hers as she murmured, "I _know_, k'diwa."

Her confidence in his ability to keep her and their children from harm, transmitted clear and strong both through their bond and through the link created by skin-to-skin contact, heightened his feeling of desire and affection for the woman he held so close. He opened his mouth to deepen the kiss. Encouraged by her own surge in passion, without removing his lips from hers, he gathered her close to his chest and stood.

As he carried her to the sleeping chamber, a hungered hum against his teeth and tongue reminded him just how arousing she continued to find his effortless strength.

Lovemaking at this stage of her pregnancy required a gentleness they had not employed in most of their years together, but there were ways. She told him with her mind and with her body that she loved his capacity for tenderness as much as she loved his own strong body.

.

.

One hour, thirty-five minute, eight seconds after he had begun, Spock lay in bed, Nyota's body a cool mass against his. She slept, but he was not in need of rest. He was content to remain at his place beside her, offering both the comfort of his presence and, when he sensed her physical discomfort through their bond, gentle hands to reposition her into a more acceptable sleeping position. Or to soothe the two new people growing inside her.

This late in her pregnancy, when the twins were prone to activity, restful sleep was often hard won.

He glided a hand over her undulating belly. His subtle questing was met with first one faint response, and then another. His daughters took comfort in their father's presence, as well, and calmed.

Their mother slept on.

* * *

**A/N:** Just a short little something to let y'all know I haven't abandoned this fic. I'm still actively writing it, but as I'm several chapters ahead of where I left off when the old computer died, I need to reconstruct some (many) things and have not had as much sucess with this one as I had with _Once_, or even with _Compass_.

Disclaimer: Still don't own 'em.


	10. The Medicine of Life

"_We'll always be best friends — something between you and me. Six years — such a long time."_ — from Hooverphonic's _Out of Sight_

_

* * *

_

When the door chimed, Uhura had to force herself not to get overly excited. These days, not many guests stayed long. If the heat didn't chase them away, the inevitable light-headedness did.

"Come," she called without bothering to rise from where she lay on the sofa.

She'd become accustomed to the alterations to the life-support system in the quarters she shared with Spock, but didn't see the point of exerting herself for a visitor who would likely be there for less than ten minutes. When her eyes drifted over to the doorway and registered that it was the doctor himself entering, she came as close to leaping to her feet as she had been able to since being confined to her quarters three weeks earlier.

"Sit down, woman!" Bones barked as he walked across the room to join her. "Last thing I need is for you to trip over your own feet now that you can't see them. Then I'll be forced to catch you, and you'll melt into my arms and just our luck, your green-blooded loverboy will walk in just in time to catch us giving in to our hidden desires."

She couldn't stop herself from breaking into a grin as she plopped heavily into a corner of the sofa.

Len would stay — whether from sheer stubbornness, or out of guilt for being the one who'd assigned a naturally gregarious woman to enforced loneliness — he always did more than duck in and out before Uhura had a chance to say more than a hurried "Hello. How-are-you? I-really-miss-being-on-the-bridge-too."

He'd been insistent that a few weeks spent in higher heat and lower oxygen would ensure she'd acclimate more quickly once she and Spock reached T'Khasi Vokaya. And while she didn't doubt that his prescription was correct, she did regret its social side effects.

"Then you'll just have to fight him for my heart," she joked, and stuffed several soft pillows behind the small of her back. "Winner gets my undying devotion — until the next challenger steps up."

Scowling, McCoy sank onto the sofa next to her.

"You only say that because you know he'll win every time," he muttered.

"It's one of the benefits of having a Vulcan husband on a ship mostly full of humans."

"I don't even _want_ to know what the other benefits might be," he said with a snort of laughter.

Uhura just smiled innocently and waited for him to get down to business. Sometimes Len stopped by just to say "hey" and shoot the breeze, but his somber expression and low-rent teasing indicated that he was there for something more serious.

For several minutes, the two sat in silence. When he finally seemed to realize that she was waiting for him to take the lead, he shifted in his seat and grunted.

"I'm going with you," he told her at last.

"Come again?"

"I said, I'm going to Vulcan Beta with you and Spock," he clarified.

The communications officer hadn't actually been looking for clarification.

She was too disconcerted over his news to even laugh at his adamant refusal to learn how to pronounce the colony's Vulcan-language name.

"No — no, I understood that," she told him, her smile fading a little. "It's just… _Why_, Len? It doesn't make sense for you to come. There are plenty of healers there now, and—"

He cut her off.

"And you're _my_ patient, not some Vulcan _healer's_ experiment!"

She reached out and placed a hand on her friend's forearm. The small smile still played at her lips.

"Oh, Len," she said quietly. "You know how much Spock and I both love you—" She gave him a light kick in the shin when he grimaced at that. "We _do_. And you know it. But they need you here on the ship.

"Those kids fresh out of Starfleet Medical come here because they want to work under _you_. We can't ask you to leave them behind for two or three months or however long this takes just so you can play midwife for me. Technically, I'm not really _your_ patient, anyway."

"First of all, I don't recall either one of _you_ asking me to come with," he told her. His furrowed brows might have intimidated someone who didn't know him so well. Uhura was unaffected.

"Secondly, anyone who gets sick, injured or knocked up on this boat is _my_ patient. Doesn't matter who their primary is; if they get treated in _my_ god-damned sickbay, they're _mine_. You got that?"

All at once, he seemed to run out of steam. He turned to her, frowning fiercely.

"This is a Starfleet decision, doll," he mutter gruffly.

When she opened her mouth to respond, protest, do something, he held up a silencing finger.

"Let me finish. The Federation is as interested in this as the Vulcans are, Nyota. You already know what your pregnancy could mean to _them_, but have you thought about what it could mean to the Federation?"

He stood and folded his arms across his chest. The shiny blue fabric of his Sickbay uniform pulled across his broad shoulders. When he turned to face her again, he was no longer frowning, but his hazel eyes, willing her to understand, sent a tiny tremor through her body.

"They've spent the last five years sending aid to Vulcan Beta, but in spite of doing everything they can to help, no one really knows if it's been enough. No one can tell when it might end." He sighed heavily. "Sure, everything looks hunky-dory on the surface, but they're still so damned closed-mouth about themselves.

"Ny, if Spock and I are on the right track, here — if all of this is because of you and not because of him — then maybe they'll be forced to open up, take a chance on letting other people have a little peek behind the curtain. Humans, at least. But, if that's gonna happen, the Federation, and Medical, too, needs to understand what's going on from the beginning. They need to know. And since I'm already involved, they want me there."

Uhura didn't know what to say. It didn't seem fair that something as simple and natural and mundane has having her husband's children should push her — and Spock and Len — into the spotlight. Childbirth was supposed to be a joyful event for family and friends, not a matter of interstellar importance.

Part of her wanted to launch herself into his arms and weep at the injustice of the universe. But she wasn't a whiner. Nyota Wangari Uhura, daughter of two powerful old families and strong in her own right, was constitutionally incapable of crying over her lot in life.

"Damn it, Bones," she said instead. "This isn't how it's supposed to be."

McCoy sat back down and wrapped his arms around her anyway.

"I know, gorgeous," he told her. "But this is how it is."

.

.

Spock was not disturbed when he entered his quarters to find his bond-mate in the arms of another man.

"Leonard, you have explained already," he said as he walked over their eating area and deposited two trays on the table. "Good. I brought dinner."

Nyota disentangled herself from McCoy and rose to greet her husband.

"You're okay with this?" she asked. "You think Len should just give up his work on the ship to hold our hands on T'Khasi Vokaya? Is that _logical_?"

The half-Vulcan knew better than to engage his wife when she was spoiling for a fight. He also understood that fear, combined with concern for her — no, _their_ — friend and a sense that decisions were being taken out their hands were leaving her somewhat on edge. The addition of pregnancy hormones did not calm the already volatile mix.

"Yes," he said simply. "I trust the doctor more than I trust the Vulcan healers. His interests lie with our well-being, rather than with that of my father's race. Is it not logical to desire the support of a friend in times of potential distress?"

He saw immediately that naming Doctor McCoy "a friend" had a soothing effect on his adun'a. Tension drained out of her shoulders and she relaxed the fighting stance she had unconsciously adopted. Her mouth worked wordlessly for four point two seconds before she nodded without speaking.

She glanced first at the covered food dishes on the table, and then, turning, at Leonard. Finally, her gaze returned to Spock.

"Did you bring enough for three?" she asked.

"Indeed," he replied with a slight bow. "As Leonard will be spending the five days remaining before we depart acclimatizing, it seemed wise to have him join us for our evening meals."

McCoy grunted and Spock looked over at him, eyebrow raised.

"I've been 'acclimatizing' part-time in my own quarters for the past two weeks. And, uh, I'm not particularly interested in eating any of that vegetarian cra—, er, food, tonight, thank you," he answered the first officer's unspoken question. "I'll be eating enough of that starting next week."

"Then it is fortunate," Spock told him, "that I have obtained one of your favorite meals, instead."

He leaned over a lifted the cover from one the array of dishes on the tray.

"Barbecued ribs? Why you big tricky devil!" McCoy exclaimed, a broad smile making his eyes gleam. He rubbed his hands together in mock over-enthusiasm and rushed over to the table. After taking in an exaggerated lungful of the fragrant steam rising off the meat, he waggled his eyebrows at his hosts.

The three took seats around the table and began uncovering more dishes. Spock had brought enough food to feed six average humans, but as both he and Nyota tended to eat more than was average, he doubted there would be any leftovers.

In spite of his aversion to "vegetarian crap," the doctor took a sample of everything available in addition to his animal flesh and appeared pleased with it all.

Halfway through the meal, Spock felt the intense focus of the other man's eyes. When he looked up, he found McCoy grinning at him.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you, Spock," he said, and speared another piece of meat covered in a dark spicy sauce.

"On the contrary, Leonard," Spock replied, a hint of amusement tingeing his voice, "you have frequently claimed not to like me at all."

He bent over his meal once more.

Nyota stifled a giggle and then her heard her whispering to their dinner guest.

"I _told_ you we both love you," she said.

* * *

**A/N:** Again, sorry for the delay. I'll try to post more frequently, but I want to wrap up the preface to this story, _Don't Lose Your Compass_, before I finish this one.

The title of this chapter is taken from a quote often attributed to the Biblical verse Ecclesiastes 6:16.

"A faithful friend is the medicine of life and immortality" actually comes from the book _Sirach_.

The mistake is understandable as Sirach is also known as _Ecclesiaticus_.

Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiaticus are completely different books (if I remember my religious studies courses, Protestant Christian religions don't consider the latter to be canon, while Catholic and Eastern Christian religions do. Feel free to correct me if that's not true.)

Anyway, I thought it fit Bones's relationship with Spock and Uhura pretty well.

Disclaimer: I don't own 'em.


	11. He Who Fails to Plan

Uhura stood between Spock and Bones on the transporter pad, mentally blocking a bout of melancholy from her husband. He already had enough reasons for resisting this trip and she didn't want to add another one.

The truth was, part of her was looking forward to arriving on the colony planet. They'd be staying in Sarek's home, where she would also give birth, and that would afford her a chance to spend some more time with her father-in-law. She was a little surprised to find that she'd missed him quite a bit over the past year.

And Ambassador Spock would be there. In the years since he had come into their lives, she'd barely spent any time with _him_ at all.

But she was going to miss her friends on the Enterprise. Three weeks spent restricted her quarters hadn't sounded too bad when Len had first ordered it, but in reality it had been a bit of a lonely hell. She'd been freed only a day ago to attend a farewell-party-cum-baby-shower — too much time spent in higher oxygen levels would have reversed her acclimatization and that really would have meant hell on her and the girls once they reached T'Khasi Vokaya — and now she was already poised to leave.

"God damn it!" Her sensitive ears picked up Bones muttering to her right. "If they're gonna break up our molecules and piece them back together, the least they could do it damn well get it over with."

She smiled to herself. The doctor had protested making a pregnant woman use the transporter, suggesting that she might rematerialize only to find that Spock was carrying one or both of the babies. Of course, Spock had pointed out that the statistical likelihood of such an even occurring was so minuscule as to be effectively impossible, but Uhura had kind of like the idea of seeing her husband with a protruding belly. And of having her own trim figure back in the wink of an eye.

_You are even more beautiful than I imagined you would be, carrying our children inside of you_, Spock assured her through their bond, and she knew that he meant it. He showed her often enough just how much he continued to desire her.

_Such thoughts are ill-advised at this time, Nyota_. His chiding words were tinged with a light sense of amusement.

Uhura looked to her left and grinned broadly, all traces of sadness washed away in a sea of suppressed laughter.

* * *

"_This_ is you plan?" McCoy frowned at the elderly ambassador then turned to the human at standing at the half-Vulcan's side. "No offense, Jabilo."

Doctor M'Benga smiled and shook his head. "None taken, Leonard."

"In case you haven't noticed," Bones said, addressing the elder Spock again, "Miz Uhura is a _human_. I won't dispute he's the best we've got at what he does, but how's that supposed to help Nyota?"

"While my specialty is in Vulcan physiology," M'Benga explained for Spock and Uhura's benefit, "I do have _some_ training in treating humans." He aimed an amused look at McCoy. "However, I believe Ambassador Spock enlisted my help for your study of Commander Spock's part in the… situation."

"Damn it J.G., if you didn't cover _that_ in elementary school biology, I'm not sure how much help you're gonna be!" Bones's grumbled, though internally, he conceded that the specialist might be useful. At least he wasn't a _healer_.

As if reading his mind, Ambassador Spock said, "I believe Doctor M'Benga's assistance is preferable to that of the Vulcan healers. Without the intervention of his counterpart, I doubt I would have been alive to have sought him out in your timeframe."

M'Benga merely laughed.

Bones sketched a quick glance at the younger Spock. Sometimes he could read him pretty well. This was not one of those times. Still, the overgrown elf wasn't visibly bristling and hadn't made any protective moves towards Uhura, so he probably was willing to give M'Benga the benefit of the doubt.

The woman herself looked intrigued. Yeah, she'd probably prefer letting the handsome doctor from her home continent get his hands on her husband to the alternative. At least Jabilo Geoffrey M'Benga was Starfleet. He would most likely consider _their_ interests over those of the Vulcans'.

"I am willing to trust Doctor M'Benga if you are," the commander told his counterpart. "You were correct in supposing that I would find a Starfleet physician preferable to a Vulcan healer in this matter. I am sure Leonard agrees."

Spock darted a look at Bones, who only just stopped himself from making a rude face back. This was serious business, after all.

"Yeah," he agreed. "And Jabilo's a good guy and a great medic — with Vulcans _and_ with humans. The only thing he ever did wrong was refuse to join me on the Enterprise."

M'Benga flashed bright white teeth at this assessment.

"Oh, I've done other bad things, Len," he said, adding a wink to his contradiction of his old friend. "As you well know, since you helped me get out of half of them!"

The two doctors shared a private chuckle, but didn't offer to elaborate.

Bones noticed that Uhura had slipped her hand into her husband's and was smiling up at him for the first time since they'd beamed down. He sucked in a lungful of the thin air and tried not believe that everything would end in tears for his two friends.

* * *

"I have a really good feeling about him, k'diwa," Uhura told her husband as they settled into their room in Sarek's spacious home. "Len seems to know him well and Spock trusted the other him with his life."

She looked up from her unpacking to see that her Spock was standing with his back to a window and wearing his noncommittal face.

"Come _on_, baby. Don't look like that!" She walked across the room and tried to wrap her arms around him. It had become increasingly difficult to do so as the twins developed. "You know I'm right."

He turned her around and embraced her from behind. She relaxed into his soothing warmth.

"Nyota, the last time you had a 'really good feeling' about something, we nearly drowned," he pointed out dryly, but his amusement was evident as a gentle fizzing through their bond.

She giggled.

"We didn't 'nearly drown,'" she protested. "We just got a little wetter than I'd intended us to."

Spock nuzzled her ear before speaking into it. "We were washed three eighths of a mile from our campsite," he reminded her.

"Yes, but you had fun getting dry before we hiked back."

Memories of that particular honeymoon activity flooded his mind and he shared the smallest portion of his growing arousal with her.

"Spock! We just got here and I'm as big as a hippo."

He let a little more of his desire slip through the bond and smiled when he felt her response.

"There are ways, beloved," he whispered into the ear he was nibbling.

"Mmm. Another one of the advantages of having a Vulcan for a husband," she agreed.

* * *

**A/N:** Short because that's all that was needed.

Disclaimer: I don't own any Star Trek-related characters or concepts, and I don't profit from writing about them.


	12. More Mystery

"It has happened at least twice a day, every day, since our arrival."

Spock's t'dahsu did not speak again right away. The elderly half-Vulcan was not frowning, but it was unusual for him to remain quiet for quite so long when Spock looked to him for direction. Surely he was not embarrassed by the topic?

"Like you, study of the sciences has made up the bulk of my life's work, but I am neither a psychologist nor a medical doctor," the ambassador told his young counterpart eventually. "Why haven't you approached Jabilo with this question?"

"While I appreciate Doctor M'Benga's assistance in our attempt to discover the reason my daughters are not one quarter Vulcan, this is a matter I would not prefer to discuss with someone I only met nine days ago. Moreover, I am not sure I wish for a man who has admitted to requiring Leonard McCoy's intervention in order to avoid punishment can offer the kind of discretion the situation demands," he confessed. "Unless there is a medical reason not to do so, perhaps it something best kept among the family."

"Jabilo M'Benga may have 'sewn his wild oats' during his time in medical school, but I can assure you that he is now a trustworthy and discreet medical professional. You have already put a great deal of trust in his work. However, if you think that he might, in the course of his research, seek assistance from sources you would rather not have privy to your current state, then perhaps it is something you should discuss with our father," Ambassador Spock suggested, in what Commander Spock saw as an uncharacteristic attempt to distance himself.

"You once to me that it would be permissible for me to seek your insight about matters which pertained to my personal development," he pointed out. "I very much prefer speaking with you about this than with Sarek. It is much like, in a manner of speaking, speaking to myself, but with the added benefit of your advanced years and superior knowledge of hybrid behavior."

The elder Spock did not bother suppressing the urge to release a slow, highly audible breath. His young counterpart could not discern whether it was a sigh of frustration or one of resignation. Perhaps there was something of both behind the display of emotion?

"Spock," the ambassador began, forced patience straining his voice. _Ah, he _was_ both frustrated and resigned, then._ "When I agreed to that, surely you understood that I offered another view of experiences we might one day have in common? As I never sired children with Lieutenant Uhura — or with any woman — I have no personal insight to offer in this case."

Spock would not be dissuaded from his search for answers. He was certain his t'dahsu had already formed a theory. It was simply a matter of convincing him to share it.

"And yet, you have had considerably more decades than I have had to contemplate the repercussions of your formerly singular nature. I would assume that your study of yourself has increased your understanding of our biological peculiarities, as well as the emotional and psychological."

He knew he had secured the older half-Vulcan's cooperation when his companion's right eyebrow shot up.

"I would not call our personal deviations from either the Vulcan, or the human, norm 'peculiarities,'" Spock protested. "We are what we are, singular, as you said. However, it should not go unacknowledged that there are many human men who are physically attracted to pregnant women."

Spock cocked his head curiously. "That was not an attraction I experienced personally before Nyota's pregnancy," he said. "Was it something you experienced in your past?"

For a moment too fleeting for him to accurately calculate its length he wondered if he had stepped over the line. While it was true that his t'dahsu was vastly more open than most other Vulcans who followed the path of Surak, and that this Spock was even more willing to share with _him_, the younger hyrbid knew there had to a be a limit to this. They were essentially the same person, yes; however, they were also two separate beings.

"No," the ambassador admitted after the moment had passed. "I did not. While I could appreciate the beauty of impending motherhood in females across many species, I was never before physically attracted to any of those females _because_ of their conditions."

Spock did not miss the "never before" in the other's statement. Much like his t'dahsu, when the two were alone together he allowed himself to be more expressive than was his wont in the company of the general population. He tensed slightly.

Clearly, Ambassador Spock had noticed him noticing. "And while I have experienced some level of attraction since your arrival," he was careful to point out, "it is hardly more than I felt upon first encountering the Nyota Uhura of this universe. It is nothing like what you have described."

The younger man relaxed and the elder grinned suddenly, adding, "Although it has been potent enough for Astra to have made known her delight that your visit coincides with hers."

Both the reminder of Astra Boipuso's presence on the colony, and his counterpart's suggestive smile flushed the last traces of burgeoning jealousy from Spock's system. He refocused on the task at hand and on his t'dahsu's continuing explanation.

"If I were to form a hypothesis about the matter, I would surmise that your current proclivity for engaging in marital relations with Nyota is a symptom of the solidification of your marriage bond, brought on by the family bond which grows ta pace with your daughters' neurological development," the ambassador suggested. "It is possible that because you and Nyota are expecting two children at one time, the effect is heightened, if not doubled or even increased exponentially."

Spock only just managed to stop himself from showing an outward display of the relief that coursed through him. Even so, his counterpart's next words told him that the other was aware of the burden that had been lifted from his mind.

"Have you experienced a Pon farr yet?" Ambassador Spock asked bluntly.

The younger of the two sucked in a breath and wondered if he had been imprudent in seeking the advice of his other self. After thirty two point five seven seconds of internal debate, he determined that he had not. The older half-Vulcan would not broach such a taboo topic if he did not believe that it was relevant to their conversation.

"No," Spock said, just as bluntly. "I have not."

The elder Spock nodded. "Am I correct in thinking that you feared that your increased desire might be an indication of your approaching Time?"

"Fear is illo— ," the younger started to say. But quarreling over semantics would not work with one who was essentially the same person. This other Spock was probably even more practiced at the tactic that he was himself. "Yes. I did not know if my human heritage would alter the manner in which the symptoms might present themselves."

The ambassador offered another of the smiles Spock was still having some difficulty becoming accustomed to seeing on a face so like his own.

"My own first Time came late — most likely because I am half human," he said, "but I assure you, it was very Vulcan in nature. You might likewise expect yours to be delayed. However, I think that if yours does present differently from mine, it shall be because you have something that I did not. The love of Nyota Uhura provided a palliative effect that made some of my later experiences of the Time more bearable than the first."

"I see," Spock responded with a quick nod of his head.

"Do you?" Ambassador Spock bent a considering look upon him. After a moment, apparently satisfied with what he saw, he nodded as well.

The commander was not sure what to do now that he had gotten the answers he had been looking for, but he was reluctant to leave his companion's presence. The elder continued to watch him quietly for three point eight minutes. Spock decided it was time to go.

"Thank you— ."

"Spock— ."

The two half-humans spoke at once.

Gesturing with a flattened palm, the younger invited the elder to speak first.

"Has Nyota offered any protest to your increased… activities?"

"No," he said. "On the contrary, she has been most enthusiastic in her participation."

And, immediately, he regretted — logic be damned — having spoken without thought.

The older half-Vulcan smiled wickedly (there really was not a more appropriate word) again.

"In that case, I suggest you carry on until she indicates that it has become a problem for her to endure your attentions," the ambassador advised. "You may as well reap the benefits while you can.

"And allow me to do the same with Ms. Boipuso," he added even more wickedly. (Really, there _was_ no other word for it.)

Spock found himself unexpectedly smiling back at the ambassador. He said what he had wanted to say when his t'dahsu had first referred to his relationship with Astra Boipuso.

"_That_ is what I believe humans would call 'too much information,'" he said.

* * *

Spock had wanted them to meet with the Vulcan specialist alone, but Nyota had been insistent. He'd conceded that McCoy's presence would be beneficial — after all, part of the tale was the ship's doctor's to tell — but had wanted convincing that his father needed to be there.

"I'm the one who's pregnant, so I think it's only _logical_ that I have a say in what happens to _my_ body," she'd declared. He'd known better than to engage in an extensive argument with her once her soft lips compressed into a firm line and determination turned her beautiful eyes into a challenge less prudent men thought they could meet. "I want all available information within reach, Spock. I don't want to wait for answers to any questions that might come up."

Surprisingly, Sarek had agreed to come without protest. Spock had expected Vulcan reserve to make his father less than willing to participate in this consultation, but the ambassador had simply confirmed the logic of Nyota's request.

"Your bondmate continues to prove her intelligence and capacity for reason, sa-fu," had been his exact words. "I find knowing that my grandchildren will have such a woman for a mother to be an agreeable thing."

Now, the three of them sat across a rectangular table from the two physicians in a windowless white room.

"Dim lights," McCoy ordered, and M'Benga swiveled in his chair to face the viewscreen embedded in the wall behind them.

"As you can see," he told them, aiming a laser pointer towards a line of data on the screen, "our tests show that Spock has been producing spermatozoa that carry only Vulcan genes. It would appear, then, that Doctor McCoy's initial hypothesis — that we are dealing with a form of hemiclonal reproduction, or hybridogenesis — is correct."

"Hybridogenesis, as we know it, has been confined to female hybrids. What usually happens with hybridgenetic organisms is that during the first meiosis of oögenesis, only the maternal genetic material is transferred to an oocyte. The paternal genome is disposed of entirely," Leonard explained further. "The fact that so many hybrid males of the lower orders are sterile probably explains why we haven't observed a similar phenomenon in spermatogenesis. We need to find out if this total reversal is due to Spock's masculinity, or if there is some other reason why the paternal DNA got preserved in his case.

"But since this isn't something we've seen in mammalian species _at all_ before, we really can't expect to be held to the usual rules. The biggest mysteries we need to deal with are gonna be, is Mister Spock, pardon my Southern, really actin' like a girl? And if he is, why? And if he isn't, what the hell _is_ going on here?"

Internally, Spock flinched at the implied insult, but recognized that his friend was attempting to "lighten the mood." As Leonard's choice of phrases, and the resulting amusement among the rooms' human occupants, had most likely intended been to benefit Nyota's emotional well-being, he opted to refrain from pointing out that it was unnecessary for the doctor to try to "break it gently" to either Sarek or himself.

"So, what does this mean?" Nyota asked. "Why _is_ Spock acting like a girl? _If_ he is, I mean."

Spock flinched externally. Once they returned to their sunlit sleeping chamber in his father's home, he would be sure to show her exactly how male he was capable of acting for a _third_ time today.

Leonard glanced at M'Benga before looking her in the eye. "We don't know yet, doll," he said. "But we'll keep checking out his boys until we find out."

* * *

"It was the 'acting like a girl' comment, wasn't it?" Uhura smiled lazily at the setting sun, visible through the balcony doors and reached back to run a finger down her husband's naked thigh. "I didn't mean it the way it sounded, you know. Or you _would_ have known if you didn't insist on shielding yourself before we went into the conference room."

Spock's hands came to rest on her protruding belly. He nuzzled the spot just behind the top of her ear, and she trembled with combined carnal pleasure and affectionate warmth. Damn it, he _knew_ what that spot did to her!

"I did not wish for you to share unnecessarily in any anxiety I might have experienced due to the doctors' revelations." He pulled her infinitesimally closer to him on the vast bed.

She stopped stroking his thigh and grabbed his left hand in hers. "_Spock_, it's my duty to help your shoulder the burden of messy things like anxiety," she said gently, and brought his fingers to her lips.

"Not while you carry our children in your body, beloved," he contested. "I do not wish to cause our daughters any distress."

"You're so good to us, k'diwa."

Awash in contentment and afterglow, Spock was contemplating a _fourth_ manhood-proving session when the door to their sleeping chamber chimed. He stifled a groan of frustration and quickly pulled up the crisp grey sheets when Nyota inexplicably called, "Come."

The door swung open and a tall figure hurried into the room.

"Dada! Kaka!" Upenda cried out. She rushed over to sit on her sister's side of the bed and placed a hand on Nyota's giant belly. "I see didn't get here too late!"

Spock did not try to stop _this_ sigh of frustration.

* * *

**A/N**: The title of this chapter comes from the Anaïs Nin quote: "The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery." But, you can expect this particular mystery to get solved within the next three chapters. Thanks for sticking with this.

Oh and, if this chapter seems a little Spock POV-heavy, that's because I don't think I've really used it at all before in this fic — it's been all about Uhura and Bones. Making up for lost time, and all that.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Star Trek.


	13. Great Ellipses

Nyota let out a squeal of delight.

"Gods, I'm so happy to see you! Did you just arrive? What are you _doing_ here?" She tried to sit up in her excitement. Only Spock's heavy arm just below her breasts kept her pinned to the bed and under the concealing sheet.

She blushed.

Upenda laughed at her predicament and gave the belly another soft pat.

"Stay still, dada. Please," she said. "I've been here for hours. Unpacked and settled in and everything. Ambassador Spock and his Astra picked me up at the terminal and brought me here.

"Your husband thought you should have kīgwa kīa nyamūirū, bananas and sweet potatoes. I skipped the lamb, though," she explained with a grin. "Anyway, since my partners are perfectly capable of handling my cases for a month or two, I'm here.

"But for now, I'm going to track down Len. I need to stretch my legs. I just didn't want to go without seeing you first. And you, too, Spock."

"That was most considerate of you, dada," he said and shifted closer to his wife.

"No, Pen!" Nyota protested. "Give us a few minutes and we'll be ready to show you around or something. There's no reason to go rushing off _now_."

Upenda Heard what her sister was really saying. "Am I not an Uhura woman?" She folded her hands over her chest. "When's the last time one of us decided not to do the right thing just because it might be hard?"

Nyota squeezed her hand. "But, Penda, there's no right or wrong this time. You don't need to do this. And after what happened, you certainly don't owe him any face time."

"He's your friend, dada. I don't want things to be awkward between you two while I'm here. I don't want things to be awkward for _me_ while I'm here."

Nyota sighed and released her sister's hand.

"It'll be okay, Ennie," Upenda assured her. "Let me go slay this dragon so you and Spock can get back to doing what he had planned when I so rudely interrupted."

Spock's lips twitched up and Nyota turned her head to look at him over her shoulder.

"A _fourth_ time, k'diwa?"

Upenda laughed as she stood and walked over to the door.

* * *

Bones groaned over the reports he'd been studying since just after Sarek, Spock and Uhura had left the conference. They were counting on him — okay, and Jabilo, too — to figure this out without calling in the healers. Starfleet Command was riding his ass pretty hard, as well.

He had no more answers than he'd been able to give them three hours before. It didn't make sense to expect a solution to hit him out of the blue, but… but blast it! These were his friends, he thought fiercely. He wanted — he _needed_ — to make things right for them.

His office door chimed and he called out, "Enter." A distraction was just what he needed right now. _If only I'd thought to pack a good bourbon_.

The door swished open and he heard footsteps against the stone floor, but his visitor remained silent.

He looked up to see the most beautiful face he'd ever known.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you, too, Len." Upenda's wide smile was obviously forced. She didn't radiate the warmth and light and charm that made her so hard to resist. "I figured, since I was in the neighborho—."

Bones cut her off with an irritated wave of his hand and shoved his chair back. "I mean, Doctor Uhura, what the hell are you doing on this blasted _planet_?"

She stiffened when she heard the title. He felt like a shit for using it, but it was safer than saying what he wanted to call her.

Luckily, Upenda wasn't the type to show hurt feelings for long. It was one of her best professional attributes. _A thin-skinned doctor may as well hang up her tricorder before she even got started_, he figured.

.

"I brought some things for an Agĩkũyũ post-birth ritual, " she explained as if he hadn't just treated her like an annoying stranger. "The twins are as African as they are Vulcan, so it's only fitting."

"You're here to meddle!" Len all but shouted at her. "Don't give me that shit about any primitive African birthing rituals. I know you; you're a woman of science. You just can't stand the thought of anyone else completing the puzzle when the pieces are something you consider to be yours!"

Upenda bristled. He could almost feel the heat of her temper burning him through the patented Uhura death-glare. He wondered if the sisters had learned it at some sharp old auntie's knee. He's met plenty of those at Spock's and Nyota's wedding.

"Don't be an ass, Leonard," she retorted through clenched teeth. "It wasn't even my idea to come here, okay?" She sat down in the chair facing his desk. "But it's a _good_ idea. I'm here because Ennie is lucky enough to have a man who actually _cares_ about what's important to her." The unsubtle dig wasn't lost on him. "I'm here to make sure my baby sister doesn't go through this feeling cut off from home. This isn't about professional competitiveness. This is about family.

"Maybe the traditions of my father's people are too '_primitive_' for you to understand and accept, or to at least condone and respect, but they mean something to us! My ancestors on both sides fought in their own ways to make sure we didn't forget. I _will_ help Nyota welcome these babies into our community."

Len sagged and stared at his feet. He knew a little about the histories of the Uhura and Wakufunzi clans. The sisters had shared with him stories of both families' struggles to preserve African languages, culture and the continent itself. He was ashamed of himself.

"I'm sorry, Pen," he muttered, shoving fingers through his thick, dark hair. "You're right, I'm being an ass. But I _do_ respect you traditions. I do."

He sighed, then looked up at her. "This is ain't easy. Not having answers for Nyota and Spock. Seeing you when I can't… It's hard, darlin'."

Upenda's frown would have been as fierce as the ones her baby sister was wont to deal out if her eyes hadn't been so sad.

"The word is 'won't', Len," she told him. Her voice was almost controlled, flat and even. "Let's not pretend there's anything but _you_ holding you back."

Bones wanted to reach for her then, but realized he wouldn't be doing either of them any favors. "I'm sorry," he said again, knowing it wasn't enough.

.

Upenda could barely breathe. That was wrong. She'd spent the short trip from Earth undergoing an accelerated acclimatization regimen in preparation for the colony's lower oxygen concentration. The oxygen levels in her cabin had been pushed so low, sucking the planet's air almost felt like getting a tri-ox hypo. This was just her body's response to a stressful situation. And seeing Leonard McCoy for the first time in more than a year was stressful.

Inhale. She pushed aside the fanciful thought that heart was breaking. Been there. Exhale.

"Look," she began when she was capable of speech once more, "I really _am_ just here for Ennie and Spock. We need to be nice to each other for their sakes. None of this — the babies, coming here — has been easy on them. I bet it hasn't been a picnic for you, either. Can't we just… can we just try to be good to each other for now? You can go back to hating me after the girls are here and you're all back on your ship and I'm back in New York and too far away to fuck up all your precious plans and promises to yourself. Okay?"

She'd rushed to get it all out before the threatening tears could color her tone. She was an Uhura, damn it. A warrior. Warriors didn't cry over dead love affairs.

Len opened his mouth to speak, but the door swished open behind her and his head snapped around her to see who was coming in.

"Oh!" The startled voice was rich and male. Something in the faint accent sounded like home. Upenda was a Wakufunzi, as well. Trained from birth to hear such things. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Len quickly pasted on a smile. "Not at all, J.G." He gestured to Upenda. She stood and turned. "This is Lieutenant Uhura's sister. Doctor Jabilo Geoffrey M'Benga, meet Doctor Upenda Wanjira Uhura."

The handsome newcomer was tall. His blue uniform tunic stretched over broad shoulders. His full lips were curved into an appreciative smile, but she could tell he was a man who took his work seriously.

She thrust out a hand. "Doctor M'Benga," she said, smiling herself, "it's a pleasure to meet you."

* * *

Spock sat up in bed, cradling a cool feminine form against his chest. He buried his nose in her hair and took a deep breath.

"Thank you," he murmured.

Astra chuckled softly, stretched in his arms and then snuggled back into his addictive warmth.

"I think we both know the pleasure was mostly mine this time, sugar," she purred. "Later, I'll have to do something to correct the balance."

"Your efforts would be appreciated, but are unnecessary," Spock told her. "I assure you, I derived a great deal of pleasure in pleasing you."

Sliding her fingers through his steel grey hair, she pulled his head down for a kiss, tasting herself on his lips and tongue.

"And I will enjoy pleasing _you_," she countered. "But later. I'm completely worn out right now." She covered a yawn with one small hand.

"Of course," said Spock. He slid down until he was flat on his back, still holding her against his chest. "I have demanded much of you during this visit."

Astra grinned up at him. "Do you hear me complaining?"

.

.

He watched her sleeping. Outside, the sky darkened with the setting sun. He would wake her before moonrise. Even if it wasn't full, they never missed a moonrise when she visited him on T'Khasi Vokaya.

Tracing a finger along her clavicles, it took a strength garnered from years of training not to cup her breast and bend his head to take a dark nipple into his mouth. His lok hardened at the thought, but he forced it down again, compartmentalizing his lust and focusing on the treasure of her company.

"Spock and Nyota must be terribly busy today." Her eyes were open again and she was smiling at him.

"I did not mean to wake you until the moon was rising," he whispered.

"It's okay. I don't want to spend half my time with you sleeping, anyway." She attempted to stifle another yawn, but failed utterly.

"You are still tired, Astra. Go back to sleep and I will wake you in time."

She pulled out of his arms and twisted so that they were lying front-to-front.

"No way! I believe I promised you some payback, Mister!" She grinned up at him, then slid down the length of his body. "I'm almost as bad as you and Spock. I wonder if Nyota has it this bad." She looked up again. "Do you think this will happen every time they decide to have a baby?"

She ducked her head, completely focused on her upcoming task before he could answer. He reached down and captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger before she begin.

"Did you ever desire to become a mother, Astra?"

The light in her eyes dimmed for a moment before being replaced with a less brilliant gleam.

"Not after he died," she admitted. Her voice hoarse and low. "And then, I was traveling everywhere and everywhen and I couldn't have done that with a child. And that would meant I never would have gotten a chance to meet you.

"Don't worry, baby. I'm happy for Spock and Ennie, but I'm content with the way my life has turned out. Regret, after all, is illogical."

The brightness that returned to her tone rang untrue, Spock did not comment on the fact. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her up his body so that he was better able to lock his fingers in her hair as he crushed her lips to his.

* * *

Nyota was happy to see Len and Penda weren't staring daggers at each other, or avoiding eye contact altogether — really, she was — but this was getting to be a little much.

"Can you guys maybe _not_ talk shop? Dinner is almost ready." She speared the three medics with a look. "I could use a little help in the kitchen, in fact."

Len just grinned at her and muttered something about damned vegetarians, but M'Benga and Upenda jumped to their feet. Nyota stuck her tongue out at the Southern doctor.

"We're eating African tonight," she told him. He didn't respond because, she noticed, he was too busy watching the door through which her sister and Jabilo had just disappeared. She glanced over at Spock, who shook his head in warning.

"Dessert is peach cobbler. Just for you. If you come help me, I can show you how to do it yourself," she offered anyway.

"Nah, that's okay, beautiful," he said. His voice was gruff and he didn't quite meet her eye. "Too many cooks…."

Nodding, she headed for the kitchen.

.

.

Dinner had been a good idea. For the first time since the conference with McCoy and M'Benga seven days ago, his younger son appeared to have enjoyed their company. In deference to his human guests, Sarek hadn't recommended silence during the meal. The banter and gossip been of little consequence, but was interspersed with news of the universe and advances in the sciences and medicine — despite Nyota's insistence that 'shop talk' be forbidden at the table.

Soon enough, Astra Boipuso had distracted his ko-fu with a discussion about what effects the advances in the study of subspace physics might have on communications engineering and Nyota appeared to have forgotten her own rule.

After the main meal, they'd adjourned to the small parlor he used to entertain friends and relatives. Eight adults eating dessert and drinking coffee or tea did not require the either of the larger, and more ornately decorated, formal sitting rooms.

Nyota and Astra sat in matching arm chairs near the tall windows. They continued to talk about the challenges of the field that still occupied one, and which the other had once pursued.

Sarek tuned in to the interesting conversation his ko-fu's sister was having with his sons and the two other doctors. The five of them were seated on small identical sofas in one corner of the room.

"Think about it: Vulcans are at what appears to the end of their evolutionary journey. They're rigid, not amenable to change. It makes sense that that's why they have some ability in self-healing.

"Humans are, at best, half-way through, and still pretty adaptable. Did anyone ever discover why physiologically Spock is more Vulcan than human? It makes sense. And if Spock's Vulcan half was trying to 'heal' itself, then yes, it makes sense for it to eliminate the human genes when it could. What better opportunity would it have than during spermatogenesis? Those cells are being stripped down and exposed, ready to be 'fixed.'

"But that wouldn't explain why the babies are female, now would it? What if, instead of being the eliminated, the human genes were somehow induced to mutate so that they mimicked Vulcan DNA?

"And, going with the 'adaptable human' theory, who's to say that some of Ennie's genes weren't recruited to the other side early in the twins' development?"

Doctor M'Benga looked at her with what Sarek recognized as surprise and admiration.

"Damned meddler!" McCoy exclaimed. He jumped up from his seat, grabbed Upenda and lifted her off her feet in an exuberant embrace. All other parties found somewhere else to turn their eyes when his lips descended onto hers for a hard, swift kiss. "Brilliant, beautiful meddler."

"It would seem that human genius runs in the family, dada," Spock told her.

Upenda blushed and waved him off. "That's not genius; it's looking for the simple solution. You three have been so bogged down in your complicated research, you failed to look for the obvious. And remember, I could still be wrong."

Sarek hoped, as illogical as he had long believed hoping to be, that she was not.

* * *

**A/N:** Chapter title is inspired by Dorothy Thompson, who said "_The kind of intelligence a genius has is a different sort of intelligence. The thinking of a genius does not proceed logically. It leaps with great ellipses. It pulls knowledge from God knows where._"

I probably should have noted this way back in the Africa chapters of _Don't Lose Your Compass_, but Upenda calls Nyota "Ennie" because someone over at the Spock_Uhura comm on lj pointed out that in Kiswahili, the word would be pronounced like en-Yoh-tah, or n-Yoh-tah. Since this jibes with what the the pronunciation guide that came with my Swahili lessons indicates, Uhura's brother and sister shorten her name to "Ennie" while her Starfleet friends tend to call her "Ny."

Disclaimer: Still don't Star Trek or the characters.


	14. Say What You Feel

"Doctor Uhura is a beautiful woman," Jabilo M'Benga observed, sounding like something that would have passed for casual had he been speaking anyone else. He made an adjustment to his bio-viewer.

"Yup."

"And highly intelligent," he told the top of McCoy's head.

"That, too."

"Len…." He waited until his colleague looked up before continuing. "Three weeks ago you were screaming at her."

"You heard that, huh?" Bones went back to sorting through a file of slides.

"Four nights ago you were kissing her," M'Benga continued as if he hadn't spoken. "If there's something go—."

"Far as I know, Pen's single," was the inevitable interruption. "You interested?"

"Len, if something that is going on between you two makes this assignment… if you need to step back, get some breathing room," M'Benga offered, "Look, I've got your back with Command. You covered my ass often enough back in the day."

Bones looked up again. "There's nothing going on, J.G."

M'Benga looked skeptical. "You _kissed_ her," he pointed out again.

"Caught up in the moment," Bones replied, faking nonchalance.

"She didn't protest. Didn't look the least bit uncomfortable. And she didn't look very surprised after you managed to pry yourself away from her mouth."

His friend sighed heavily and put down the slide he'd just selected. "Fine," he said. "I met Pen about a year ago, just before Spock and Ny's wedding. We got along pretty well. Spent a little time together before and and a lot of time after. My kid really liked her.

"But you _know_ I don't do serious relationships. You know why. And so does Pen."

M'Benga's hands curled into fists that he slammed against his hips. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard come out of your mouth yet, Len. And I've heard you say some pretty stupid shit."

He didn't back down from McCoy's glare. "You know I'm right."

"There's nothing going on with Pen and me," Bones said with an air of finality. "That's just how it is."

He bent over his work again.

Bones slipped the flexible transparent slide into an analyzer/sequencer that was somewhat less powerful than the one he had helped develop, but, unexpectedly, still a better model than most facilities had on hand. Not that he _should_ have been surprised; he supposed it would come in handy for the Vulcan's "rebuilding" efforts. A soft ping indicated the machine had initiated the first of its series of processes.

M'Benga looked over from the bio-viewer. "What was that?"

"Sample from Ambassador Sarek," McCoy answered without looking away from the analyzer's data screen.

The African doctor shut down his bio-viewer and placed his hands on his hips.

"Where did you get _that_?"

Bones glanced up, a confused frown threatening. "From Sarek. Where'd you _think_ I got I it?"

Jabilo shook his head and decided the redirect the conversation before it devolved into absurdity.

"Let me put it this way: _When_ did you get a sample from Ambassador Sarek?"

"Oh," Bones said, returning his attention to his work. "I got it a couple of weeks ago — when we first got here. Sarek agreed months ago; right around the time he asked me to bring Spock here."

Jabilo frowned. "Any reason why you waited until _now_ to check it out?"

"Honestly?" Bones met the other doctor's eyes. "We've been so busy rushing to work out Spock's samples, it slipped my mind at first. And then, once we thought we had it all figured out, it didn't seem all that important to get to it right away.

"But on the chance Pen was on the right track, I figure it can't wait any longer. Because if it doesn't all match…."

M'Benga smiled and nodded. "If it doesn't all match, then we're either dealing with spontaneous mutations of Spock's Vulcan genes, or his human genes are trying to turn Vulcan."

"Yeah, and without Lady Amanda here to give us a sample, we're gonna need to ask Spock for another donation. I don't think he'll have a problem giving a little hair, blood and abdominal stem cells — he won't worry that anyone might use those to impregnate some unknown Vulcan woman, plus he trusts _us_ — but I'd rather have Sarek's genes already sequenced before I approach him."

"You and Spock are pretty close, aren't you?" The other doctor folded his arms across his chest and pasted a faux-indulgent smile on his face. "I mean, this isn't just about what Starfleet wants, or about reassuring Lieutenant Uhura, or even about pleasing her sister. You really care about _Spock_ and want to help protect him."

Bones glared at the man.

"Don't you go spreading lies and rumors, J.G.!"

M'Benga was still laughing at him when the commlink sounded.

* * *

"Sarek has contacted Leonard and Doctor M'Benga," Spock informed his sweat-drenched wife. "They will be with us in approximately twelve point seventeen minutes."

"Spock," she said. Her voice was strained and questioning. She gripped his hand with a strength he had not known she was capable of displaying.

"I am here, beloved," he answered, not even thinking of pulling away.

"You know how much I love you, right?"

"Not a moment goes by that I am unaware of the esteem in which you hold me. Knowledge of your affection is always near the fore of my thoughts."

"So, if I told you that I'm never having sex with you again, you probably wouldn't' believe me, huh?"

"Under the current circumstances, Nyota, I believe I can understand why such a thought might occur to you, but, as your present status can hardly be considered the norm for us, no, I would not believe you. However, if you _did_ make such a statement, I must confess, once Leonard said it was permissible, I would enjoy engaging in activities targeted at convincing you otherwise."

A tiny trickle of amusement came through their bond, but he knew she was actually considering ceasing sexual relations in the future. He sent back a memory of one of their more heated love-makings.

"I love you, Spock, and I loved making love with you, but that's what got me in this state in the first place." He felt her desire to laugh.

"I am aware of the fact," he said, holding back a smile of his own.

Another shockwave of pain had her clenching his fingers again. Spock sent calm through their bond and rode out the contraction with his adun'a.

"It _hurts_, k'diwa," she said unnecessarily.

Knowing better, he said what was on his mind anyway. "Nyota, you know that pain suppressors are available at any time you— ."

"It's _supposed_ to hurt, damn it!" she snapped, her small fingers nearly crushing his hand.

"I know you wish— ," he began.

"If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen!"

Spock let out a very un-Vulcanlike sigh and began stroking her forehead with the hand that she had not entrapped.

"I will not let you experience this alone, beloved."

Her face contorted as remorse replaced anger.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, near tears now. "I don't mean to be so horrible to you. It's just… I didn't think it would be this bad. You really don't have to do this. Men aren't supposed to know what this feels like."

He sent another wave of calm, added a sense of his love for her and their daughters and refrained from telling her he did not think that most males — even Vulcan males — were physically, mentally or emotionally suited to sharing in the experience. At the moment, he was unsure of his own suitability, though he was certain that his conviction would keep him from abandoning her to labor alone.

"You are performing admirably, adun'a," he told her formally, and immediately sensed her amusement bubbling through the bond once more.

"Someone's been giving you advice on handling illogical women," she said, grinning in spite of the contraction he could feel gathering in her womb. "Was it" she paused to take a strained breath "Jim or Len? I'm guessing Len. What does Jim know about women in labor, anyway?" The last was said almost to herself.

He could feel her attempting to center herself to endure the fresh wash of agony and added his efforts to the endeavor. Through it all, he sensed that some small part of her amusement remained intact. He decided to press his advantage.

"Not quite, actually," he admitted. "While I was helping Mama plan the wedding, Leonard gave me a treatise called _The Complete Moron's Guide to Not Spending Every Night On the Couch_. I have been reviewing the advice therein."

The pain receded again and she managed a small laugh at his confession.

"Oh? I see you're putting it to good use."

"Not precisely," he said, contradicting her extrapolation — going against a direct order from the book. "The authors stated that after the third or fourth month of pregnancy, it would be impossible to avoid spending at least part of every night sleeping anywhere other than next to one's wife. However, they failed to take into account the unique advantages a Vulcan husband might offer his wife."

Her amusement increased in direct concert with the intensifying pain and they both were able to get through the contraction with something close to smiles lingering on their faces.

* * *

Upenda resisted a strong impulse to go running into her baby sister's room. Spock was there and mostly likely had things well in hand. Another benefit of having a half-Vulcan for a husband, Ennie would say. She reminded herself not to use the Gifts she'd inherited from her mother's side of the family.

Instead, she took a steadying breath and moved over to the large stasis unit that had traveled with her from Earth. Checking the contents through the transparent front, she nodded in satisfaction. There was nothing else to do but wait.

When her bedroom door chimed twenty minutes later, she had just checked the unit for the thirteenth time.

"Enter," she called.

The door swished open to reveal Astra and Ambassador Spock, each laden with several large bulky cloth-covered objects.

"Let me help you with those," Upenda told Astra, and she walked across the room to relieve the diminutive older woman of part of her burden.

"Thank you, Pennie," Astra said with a sigh of relief. "Ambassador Sarek mentioned that you brought a botanical stasis apparatus with you. I wondered if you had room for a few additions. If not, I can send Spock back to his place for his."

Upenda eyed the things the pair had carried into her room and did a quick mental calculation of the dimensions. It would be an extremely tight fit, but…

Astra laughed suddenly, apparently at the look on Upenda's face. "Oh! Don't worry, I don't need all of it to go in. Just this."

She pulled the cover off the nearest object.

Upenda's eyes met the older woman's and a knowing smile spread across her face. She winked.

"Sure, I've got room for that," she said, and picked up the small tree that bore three tiny but perfect bunches of unripe bananas.

* * *

**A/N:** This chapter's title comes from the Doctor Seuss (I _know_!) quote: "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." It really addresses a lesser theme in the whole fic, but this was the best chapter to carry its name, I thought.

Disclaimer: The characters and starship don't belong to me; I'm just giving them new lives and new situations.


	15. What Was Silent In The Father

As soon as the ambassador left the two women to their preparations, Upenda reached into her closet and brought out a drawstring bag. She turned to her guest, a huge smile lighting her face.

"I was pretty certain Spock would feel uncomfortable with the slaughtering and roasting, so I brought these." She opened the mouth of the sack to show Astra the fluffy white soft toys inside.

Astra laughed and pulled out one of the stuffed lambs. "This is perfect! Though, I have to say I'm a little surprised your very logical brother-in-law didn't dismiss the ritual as illogical."

"It was his idea, actually," Upenda told her. "A bunch of Baba's aunties cornered him before the wedding. They wanted to talk about babies. Even though back then there was still a question of whether Spock and Ennie could _have_ babies, he told me he found the idea of the first meal 'fascinating.'

"It's not logical, of course — you got that part right — but I guess he liked the idea of the girls being brought into the cultural fold so quickly. I'm sure your Spock has told you what it was like for him. Our Spock wants his children to feel as if they belong."

"Yes," Astra murmured thoughtfully. "That part, I can believe. Who knows better than Spock how it feels not to belong?"

The women finished preparing what little more they could before settling into chairs near Upenda's balcony entrance. There was nothing to do but wait now.

They chatted about nothing important until a familiar voice, calling out in pain, prompted Upenda to close the tall glass doors.

"You didn't want to be the one to deliver your nieces?" Astra asked as her hostess resumed her seat.

Upenda grinned at her. "Can you imagine how that would have played out?" she asked, laughing a little. "_You've_ got an older sister. What do you think you would do if you were in pain and she was ordering you around, telling you not to push when you wanted to push or to push when you just wanted to give up?

"Ennie and I are close, but I'm not sure I'd be the best choice as her obstetrician."

"Are you sure it's not that you'd lose your Uhura cool if you had to see your dada in pain?" Astra's grin was mischievous, but her curiosity was real.

The fierce frown and stiffened posture that every Uhura-born woman could adopt at the drop of a hat didn't fail Upenda.

"I'm a doctor," she declared loftily. "I don't lose my cool while doing my job."

There was a moment of silence before Astra threw her head back, peals of sob-like laughter sending her body into tremors that were nearly alarming in their intensity.

"What?" Upenda demanded.

Trying to gain control of herself, Astra sat forward and leaned over her knees. "I'm sorry, Pennie," she gasped through chuckles that continued to escape. "It's just… it's just, you sounded just like my own dada just then!"

* * *

Bones ended the communication and walked swiftly over to the desk he'd claimed as his own nearly two months before. With an efficiency borne of long experience, he opened the med-kit he'd packed weeks earlier and began checking several pieces of portable equipment.

"It's time?" M'Benga asked, looking up from his own work.

"Looks like." McCoy examined the last item and slung the bag over his shoulder.

M'Benga stopped him before he reached the door.

"I'll finish up Sarek's sample," he said. "But you call me if you need assistance. I know they don't want to bring the healers in."

Bones gripped the other doctor's hand and squeezed. Hard. "Thank you," he said. Then he walked out.

* * *

Spock's voice was calm and firm.

"This is the way of neither your father's people, nor mine, adun'a," he said. "I fail to understand the reason for your insistence."

Nyota's voice was firm and on the verge of angry.

"This is _my_ way, adun," she argued. "We don't have to follow the path of our fathers' peoples in everything that we do."

"Your sister traveled to T'Khasi Vokaya from Earth to ensure we do just that in _this_ matter."

Uhura's answering growl was clearly audible through entry to the balcony and across the bedroom. Bones decided to make his presence known before the woman started throwing things at the oversized elf.

He sprinted to the folded-back glass doors to find his patient sitting in her husband's lap and glaring up into his eyes.

"Trouble in Paradise?" the doctor asked with a teasing grin.

Spock shifted his wife closer to his torso and they both tensed for a moment as, apparently, another contraction hit.

Bones took advantage of the moment of silence to pull out his medical tricorder and run it over Uhura and her protruding belly.

"Nyota has decided she would prefer to give birth on the terrace," Spock explained once the wave of pain had passed.

Satisfied with the tricorder readings, Bones quickly scanned the over-sized balcony. The stone floors and railings were immaculate. There were several comfortable-looking chairs and small tables scattered around, but the large space was uncluttered.

"Okay, darlin'. This is your party," he said, earning an almost-glare from the supposedly oh-so-stoic Vulcan. "I brought sterile sheeting and portable monitors. If you give us something a little higher to work on, I don't see why this should be a problem."

"Doctor," Spock said slowly, and Bones knew the half-Vulcan was spoiling for a fight. "We are outside. My mate is about to give birth to children whose genetic make-up spawned an as-yet-unsolved medical and scientific mystery. Which part of that scenario do you not see as being a problem?"

Bones sighed. Spock may have been spoiling for a fight, but he'd wasted his time on the wrong opponent. Well, it wasn't his place to interfere. If the overgrown jackrabbit _liked_ sleeping on sofas…

"Your _very healthy_ wife is about to give birth your two _very healthy_ little medical miracles," he pointed out instead of warning the hobgoblin that his wife was fixin' to deck him or do something equally painful. Hell, contact telepath that he was, Spock probably already knew, and just didn't care. "There's no danger in pleasing her in this. Now, I'm just gonna go hunt down your daddy and see if we can shift a higher bed or table or something out here. You two — you _four_ — sit tight."

.

It didn't take long for Bones to commandeer a long, broad padded bench with high legs — Sarek explained that many Vulcan women gave birth on such pieces of furniture — and get his equipment set up.

He managed to calm Uhura down when she suddenly got his arm in a death grip and looked at him with wild, terrified eyes.

"It's not too soon is it, Len?" she asked. "Can you do anything to stop it?"

"Darlin', I'd think after more than ten and a half months you'd be tired of carrying this load around," he told her with a soft smile. "It's not too soon, sweetheart. Your girls are fine, and ready to come meet their mama."

"But they're _Vulcan_," she protested. "They need thirteen months."

"They're _half human_," he countered. "You've pretty much split the difference. We're almost dead even between the two."

Everything was going fine.

Until she started screaming.

.

.

Even before her sister's anguished cries penetrated the thick glass doors to her balcony, Upenda's bedroom door chimed.

The elder Spock entered without waiting to be admitted.

"Your assistance is required," he told her.

That's when she heard Nyota screaming, "I want my dada. Get. Me. My. DADA!"

Upenda pushed past him in her rush to get to her little sister.

.

"Push, now, dada. We need you to push."

"_You_ push," Nyota snarled. "Or make Spock push. I'm tired and this is all his fault, anyway."

Upenda's face, as she exchanged glances with Leonard, seemed to be torn between amusement and frustration. Spock was uncertain whether she would chastise his wife or resume the gentle coaxing and teasing she had utilized for the last two point seven hours of Nyota's labor. He was certain he did not wish to find out which behavior she would choose. Neither would be a good choice.

"Beloved," he said, before Upenda could make up her mind, "if you push now, I will help carry your pain."

He was astounded — as well as relieved — to see his wife turn her tear-stained face up to him and smile weakly.

She pushed.

.

"Oh! Oh, she's beautiful," Upenda murmured. She quickly wrapped the mewling infant in a birthing cloth and placed her in Spock's free arm. "Just look at how beautiful my niece is."

Spock glanced down at his daughter, and had to admit he agreed. But he could not lose himself in her beauty because her sister was already making her appearance.

.

"Two for two!" Bones announced happily. He hugged Upenda to his side.

Both girls lay on their mother's chest. Their father was hovering over all three.

For a moment, just before they'd delivered the first baby, Bones had been afraid Spock was going to pass out and fulfill Nyota's long ago prophesy, but the pointy-eared bastard had held his ground. Even shared the pain with her, as illogical as that was.

* * *

They lit the fire in on the terrace. The burner looked like a giant version of a meditation firepot — far from what they would have used at home — but it suited their purpose and their location.

"Of course," Astra began to say as she roasted the first sweet potato, "my father was also Kiguyu — Agĩkũyũ."

Upenda rolled her eyes and Nyota smirked.

"You don't say," they chorused.

Astra tested her sweet potatoes to see if they were ready, while Upenda cut off a manageable piece of raw _kīgwa raw kīa nyamūirū_. The unripened bananas didn't take long to cook and would be roasted after everything else was ready.

"Unfortunately, where I grew up, we were unable hold on to the traditions of our ancestors, but that didn't mean that we weren't proud of our heritage," she continued, ignoring the sisters' teasing. "But during my travels, I was able to find some of what had been lost and learn more about the things that were only the vaguest of concepts for my family.

"So, I wanted to thank you two for allowing me to be a part of this."

Chagrined, the Uhuras smiled warmly and offered the older women assurances that she was welcome and that they considered her to be family.

Smirking just a bit, Astra picked up a plate from a near-by table, sliced the sweet potato and arranged it around the blue-purple sugar cane. Upenda thrust a banana into the flames.

When everything was ready, they brought the plate to Nyota.

The new mother took a bit of each of the three foods in turn, chewing a little and then placing her lips onto her daughters' in turn, so that their first meal showed that they, too, were Agĩkũyũ.

* * *

"Sa-mehk." His son's voice was quiet. "Leonard and Dr. M'Benga have not finished testing the theory Upenda posited four nights ago."

The stately Vulcan continued watching the three African women as they completed their welcoming rite.

"You wonder if I will be less capable of accepting the humanity of your children than I was with you. You wonder if I will less able to love them because yours came from your mother whereas theirs might not." He turned to study Spock's not quite impassive face.

"The thought did occur to me."

Sarek angled his head so that he was once again looking out the glass doors that separated the two from the stone terrace where Nyota rested with his granddaughters on a wide Terran-style chaise longue. Upenda Uhura and Astra Boipuso knelt on either side of her.

"I once told you, sa-fu, that my esteem for you stems from more than the identity of your mother," he said. "I have been remiss, however, if I allowed you to believe that my regard is simply further enhanced because you are _my_ son."

The silence stretched between them for only a moment before he turned to Spock, and in an unaccustomed gesture, placed a hand on his shoulder.

Spock faced his father.

"I loved my newly born child for those reasons," Sarek said quietly, the expression on his face unchanging. "I continue to love you for all that you have become. I accept your children as they are because they come from _you_."

Vulcan and half-Vulcan looked through the glass doors once more. Now fully awake again, and smiling, Nyota Uhura beckoned them.

"Sa-mekh," she called softly, "come meet Saoirse Ta'an and Seren Adia."

_Finis_

* * *

**A/N:** 1. The chapter title comes from the quote _"__Was der Vater schwieg, das kommt im Sohne zum Reden; und oft fand ich den Sohn als des Vaters entblößtes Geheimnis.„_ which is from the "On the Tarantulas" section of Friedrich Nietzsche's _Also Sprach Zarathustra_.

I've usually seen it translated as "What the father hath hid cometh out in the son; and oft have I found in the son the father's revealed secret." but I prefer, "What is silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son, the unveiled secret of the father."

Ignore the fact that Zarathustra (through Nietzsche) wasn't being warm and fuzzy when he said this. Sarek and Spock are totally bonding, here!

2. To any die-hard TOS fans, please note that in light of the inconsistencies within TOS canon (and since Spock was born before the Kelvin was destroyed, he was born in the prime!verse), I have decided to ignore Gene Roddenberry's 1976 interview with "Sarek" found on the _Inside Star Trek_ album. As was often the case when trying to take everything every authority considered to be canon, some things just don't add up. So I took a fanfic writer's prerogative and decided to pick and choose among examples. In this case, normal Vulcan gestation lasts about 13 months, while normal human gestation lasts approximately 280 days.

3. The ritual Upenda and Astra help Nyota perform is real. Wangari Maathai described in detail the way the Agĩkũyũ (Kikuyu in Swahili and English) people welcomed a child into the world in her wonderful memoir, _Unbowed._

Please check out the continuation of this tale in _Bourbon_ at /s/6659443/1/Bourbon. Or, for a lighter side of the weeks that follow, see _Baby Gifts_ at /s/5517124/1/Baby_Gifts.


End file.
